A revision of the EU's guidelines for the development of the trans-European air, road, rail and waterway network was adopted today by an overwhelming majority in the European Parliament's Transport Committee.

The file will now enter into trilogue negotiations. The ECR Group holds the firm view that Europe needs a truly functional and effective transport network to meet the needs of the internal market and the mobility of people and goods.

After the vote, ECR shadow rapporteur Roberts Zīle pointed out that “cross-border connections and bottlenecks are usually obstacles to seamless mobility, and the Committee today supported a number of changes to the EU’s transport infrastructure that will help to better develop urban hubs and missing links”. However, Zīle also highlighted that Eastern Europe needs to be given more attention in future: “The Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T) must properly connect all regions of the Union, and further attention must be paid to better connecting Eastern Europe to the rest of the EU.”

Zīle is particularly pleased that military cooperation has also been taken into account:

“We keep seeing how important military mobility is and can be in the future. The ECR Group has been pushing for the military aspect of the TEN-T network to be strengthened and for the infrastructure to be better used by the military as well.”

“Moreover, in the current geopolitical situation, against the background of Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine, it is important to strengthen the partnership with Ukraine and Moldova and to help these countries to develop their transport infrastructures.”

Summing up, Zīle said:

“The position adopted today in the Transport Committee is a good starting point for negotiations with the Council, although we believe that the final text should be even more flexible to take account of the geographical differences between Member States.”

Zīle also welcomes the Committee’s position in favour of maintaining the concept of an ‘isolated railway network’ in relation to the broad-gauge network in the Baltic States and Finland.

“Certain exemptions from infrastructure requirements should be maintained for this specific network, as not everything is technically feasible”, concluded Zīle.