EUPAVE's Christmas Dinner Debate
|
|
EUPAVE holds a successful Christmas dinner debate on “How to address sustainability in new transport infrastructure contracts in the EU?”
|
On December 13, 2011, Mr. Helmut Morsi, European Commission Directorate-General for Mobility and Transport, Deputy Head of Unit Trans European Networks and Investment Strategy and Head of Sector OMC TENtec & Innovation, honoured the EUPAVE Christmas dinner debate at Hotel Metropole in Brussels.
|
|
Mr. Aniceto Zaragoza, President of EUPAVE, opened the debate with a short speech on EUPAVE's activities and substantive intention for active cooperation. He concluded his speech by appreciating the European Commission's support for the sustainable and climate resilient infrastructure.
|
|
Mr. Helmut Morsi gave a speech on “Trans European Networks and Investment Strategy”. He pointed out that the Connecting Europe Facility will invest €31.7 billion to upgrade Europe's transport infrastructure.
|
|
He also explained that Trans-European Transport (TEN-T) Network consists of two layers: a core network to be completed by 2030 and a comprehensive network to be completed by 2050. The new core TEN-T network will close the missing links and remove bottlenecks. The core network will be supported by a comprehensive network of routes, feeding into the core network at regional and national level.
Mr.Morsi drew particular attention to the application of “New technologies and innovation” (TEN-T guidelines Article 39) in the comprehensive network. This network must keep up with the state-of-the-art technological developments and deployments, aiming to, amongst others:
enable the decarbonisation of transport,
improve resilience to climate change.
It is clear that concrete has an answer to these challenges.
A major innovation on the new TEN-T guidelines is the introduction of 10 corridors on the core network. These corridors will be governed through corridor platforms, which bring all relevant stakeholders and the Member States concerned together.
|
|
As Mr. Morsi finished, he invoked EUPAVE's contribution to European Commission's forthcoming projects.
|
|
Afterwards, a lively discussion took place with questions and statements by several EUPAVE members and reactions from Mr. Morsi.
The Christmas dinner debate was closed with greetings for Christmas and a successful New Year.
|
|