Press Release TRAN Committee

Election of the Bureau, Italian Presidency and 2013 TEN-T Calls at TRAN July meeting

25 July 2014

On 5 July, the Transport and Tourism (TRAN) Committee of the European Parliament held the first meeting of the 2014-2020 legislative period.

On this occasion, MEPs elected the TRAN Bureau by acclamation:

Chair

  • CRAMER Michael (photo - Greens/EFA, DE)

Vice-chairs:

  • 1st: RIQUET Dominique (ALDE, FR)
  • 2nd : KOCH Dieter-Lebrecht (EPP, DE)
  • 3rd: PORĘBA Tomasz Piotr (ECR, PL)
  • 4th: UJHELYI István (S&D, HU)

On 22 July, the Italian Ministry of Infrastructure and Transports, Maurizio Lupi, presented the transport priorities of the Italian Presidency to the Transport and Tourism (TRAN) Committee. Transport and transport infrastructure are vital to the Presidency's key priorities of growth and employment. In particular, he stated that EU transport have to pursue the objectives of de-carbonization of the European economy, focus on competitiveness and the cohesion and respect the most high standards of sustainability and security.

During the meeting, Lupi made clear that the port regulation is one of the main priorities of the Italian Presidency. He stated that ports play a fundamental role in the new TEN-T and need a legislative framework that will enable them to face global competition. For this reason, the Italian Presidency will continue to work on the port regulation that liberalise port services and guarantee fair competition, preserving the specificity of the different national and local situations.

On the same day, Mr Onidi, Director at DG MOVE, presented the selection decisions following the 2013 TEN-T calls for proposals, the last from the financing framework of the previous TEN-T Regulation. Members welcomed the list of projects selected for co-financing, highlighting the strong emphasis on multimodality, innovation (especially with regards to alternative fuels and new traffic management systems), noise reduction and safe parking. However, many MEPs regretted the uneven geographical distribution in the selection of the projects, most being in the North of the EU rather than from the South or from the newer Member States. The Commission explained that the selection depended on the quality of the projects and therefore sometimes Member States with more experience in answering these types of calls, or more resources available, put forward better quality projects. To reduce this imbalance in the future, the Commission plans to increase the technical assistance provided.


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