EUU, Alm.del - 2018-19 (1. samling) - Bilag 471: Rapport fra Den Europæiske Revisionsret januar 2019

Europaudvalget 2018-19 (1. samling)
EUU Alm.del Bilag 471
Offentligt

Journal

1| 2019

Mobility &

Transport

“

Transport in the EU – bringing

activities and places together

International cooperation is key

for Europe and likewise for the ECA

THEME

EUU, Alm.del - 2018-19 (1. samling) - Bilag 471: Rapport fra Den Europæiske Revisionsret januar 2019

Table of contents

NUMBER 1/2019

ECA JOURNAL LONG READ

By Professor Yves Crozet

INTERVIEW

Henrik Hololei,

Director-General for

Mobility and Transport,

European Commission

Reconciling transport and the

environment - a dilemma that

is here to stay

Moving from

EU patchwork to

EU network

EDITORIAL

ECA Journal Long Read

Reconciling transport and the environment

- a dilemma that is here to stay

By Professor Yves Crozet

Connecting transport modes and policy

areas – the ECA landscape review

on transport

Interview with Ladislav Balko, ECA Member

By Gaston Moonen

Moving from EU patchwork to EU network

Interview with Henrik Hololei, Director-

General for Mobility and Transport, European

Commission

By Derek Meijers and Gaston Moonen

Taking a broader view of transportation

and the key challenges to be addressed:

an auditor’s landscape perspective

By Svetoslav Hristov

Transport and climate: still a long journey

By Catherine Hayes and Olivier Prigent

EU passenger rights – auditing a policy

that really matters to citizens

By Erki Must

Being ECA’s Mr Transport

Interview with Luc T’Joen

By Derek Meijers and Gaston Moonen

Up in the sky – auditing Europe’s air traffic

management systems, step by step…

By Afonso Malheiro

Transport and climate:

the drive for clean air

By Colm Friel

Are the EU’s flagship projects on course? –

Auditing EU infrastructure investments in

core transport networks

By Emmanuel Rauch

The embedded translator – interpreting

for auditors during on-the-spot audit

visits of transport infrastructure

By Richard Moore

DIRECTOR'S CUT

EU transport policy needs a strategic

heart

Interview with Gabriele Cipriani, Martin Weber

and Gerhard Ross, respectively the successive

and current directors of the ‘Investment for

Cohesion, Growth and Inclusion’ Directorate

By Derek Meijers and Gaston Moonen

EUU, Alm.del - 2018-19 (1. samling) - Bilag 471: Rapport fra Den Europæiske Revisionsret januar 2019

EU passenger rights – auditing a

policy that really matters to citizens

By Erki Must, ECA

INTERVIEW

Luc T’Joen, ECA

Being ECA’s Mr

Transport

INTERVIEW

Michael Cramer, Member of the European

Parliament

EU auditor’s recommendations

contributing to a reassessment

of public spending on port

infrastructure in Italy

By Graziano Delrio, Member of the Italian

Parliament

Creating a level-playing field

in the EU

Creating a level-playing field in the EU:fair

opportunities for the different transport

modes require regulatory action

Interview with Michael Cramer, Member of the

European Parliament

By Gaston Moonen

EU auditor’s recommendations

contributing to a reassessment of public

spending on port infrastructure in Italy

By Graziano Delrio, Member of the Italian Parliament

Progress is slow on High-Speed Rail

across the EU

By Oskar Herics, ECA Member

The French Cour des comptes’s rail

transport audits: helping the rail system

to adapt

By André Le Mer

An ex-post evaluation of a Japanese high-

speed rail project — Hachinohe to Shin-

Aomori on the Tohoku Shinkansen

By Eiji Onaka

Passing common-or-garden trees,

on a run-of-the-mill train

By Lisette van Erp and Werner van Hoof

‘Identifying trends in transport audits

in the EU

By Di Hai

Auditing motorway construction in the

Czech Republic – from the perspective

of a national SAI auditor

By Jiří Přikryl

Making the implementation of EU

transport and mobility policy happen –

the role of INEA

By Dirk Beckers, Executive Director of the Innovation

and Networks Executive Agency

Europe goes into space: looking back on

what has happened since the ECA audited

the ‘Galileo’ programme10 years ago

By Els Brems and Olivier Côme

EIB leveraging finance to connect Europe

through cleaner, smarter and

safer mobility

By Stéphane Petti

EU transport safety and the Morandi

Bridge collapse - an admonishment

By Christian Verzè

EUU, Alm.del - 2018-19 (1. samling) - Bilag 471: Rapport fra Den Europæiske Revisionsret januar 2019

Table of contents

Passing common-or-garden

trees, on a run-of-the-mill

train

By Lisette van Erp and Werner van Hoof,

train travellers

EIB leveraging finance to connect

Europe through cleaner, smarter

and safer mobility

By Stéphane Petti, EIB

102 Researching transport issues for the

parliament –the work of the EPRS and how

it uses the ECA reports

Interview with Sarah Sheil

By Derek Meijers and Gaston Moonen

105 FORESIGHT AND AUDIT

Foresight for transport and mobility:

forces, factors and future challenges

By Andreas Bolkart

108 REACHING OUT

Third time the ECA presents its work at a

UN Climate Change Conference: looking

back at the COP24 in Katowicel

By Arfah Chaudry and Katarzyna Radecka-Moroz

111 Touching base with the EP’s Conference

of Committee Chairs: discussing possible

priorities for the 2020

By Helena Piron Mäki-Korvela

113 Visit by the Belgian Chamber of

Representatives

By Dennis Wernerus

115 100 year anniversary of the Supreme Audit

Office of Poland

By Kinga Wisniewska-Danek

118 ECA signs new partnership agreement with

University of Lorraine for diploma in statistics

applied to audit

By Gaston Moonen

121 FOCUS

ECA publications

in January/February 2019

125 NEXT EDITION

PRODUCTION

Editor in chief:

Gaston Moonen

Tel.: +352 4398 - 45716

E-mail:

[email protected]

Deputy editor:

Derek Meijers

E-mail:

[email protected]

Desktop publishing: Nicolas Toulas

distribution:

Directorate of the Presidency

Photos:

Reproduction prohibited

Reproduction is authorised

provided the source is

acknowledged

The contents of the interviews

and the articles

are the sole responsibility

of the interviewees and authors

and do not necessarily

reﬂect the opinion of the

European Court of Auditors

Unless indicated otherwise,

all pictures and graphical visuals

originate from the ECA

For more information:

European Court of Auditors

12, rue Alcide De Gasperi

1615 Luxembourg,

LUXEMBOURG

[email protected]

Past editions of the Journal

can be found on ECA’s website:

eca.europa.eu/en/Pages/Journal.aspx

eca.europa.eu

@EU auditors

EUU, Alm.del - 2018-19 (1. samling) - Bilag 471: Rapport fra Den Europæiske Revisionsret januar 2019

Editorial

Transport – freedom of movement, but not for free

Freedom of movement is a fundamental right. And — this may surprise you — it is not something

specific to the European Union. It is right there in the first paragraph of Article 13 of the Universal

Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the United Nations back in 1948. And, as paragraph

2 of the same article stipulates, this right is not limited to your country, but applies worldwide.

Having rights is one thing, being able to exercise them is another issue. And here the European

Union’s Single Market comes into play. Article 26 of the Treaty (TFEU) stipulates an internal

market, without internal frontiers, in which the free movement of goods, persons, services and

capital — also called the ‘four freedoms’ — is assured. The Treaty also devotes a whole section

(Title VI) to transport. The setting up of the Single Market and the increasing involvement of

the EU in legislating, financing and organising various aspects of transport and mobility are

undoubtedly intertwined. But the economic success of the Single Market, the enlargement of

the Union since 2004 and changes in citizen’s lifestyle have also meant different traffic flows,

more traffic and new problems to be addressed.

One of my favourite slogans is ‘The EU works best if the citizen does not notice it.’ And to a

large extent this also applies to transport and mobility issues. Because traffic has increased

substantially. This is not only my feeling: it is also pointed out in the ECA landscape review on

transport published in December 2018, which motivated us to select transport as the theme

for this Journal. From an economic point of view, as you can read in our Long Read, transport

means bringing activities and places together, be it by road, rail, air or on water. Moreover, both

the time and costs needed to move goods and persons around have decreased. In most, but

not in all cases, and also depending on how you define costs. Looking at the significant changes

that have taken place in the area of transport in Europe since the 1990s, many of them can be

traced back to EU legislation or, at least for major infrastructure works, financing. In that sense

transport is an area where citizens meet the EU almost on a daily basis. And not only when they

are crossing borders.

However, my slogan also applies the other way around. When something does not work well,

certainly when travelling between Member States, citizens will notice and would like to see action

to address the problem. And as soon as this concerns cross-border transport or transnational

issues, the EU comes into the picture: ‘Do something!’ And in today’s global village, what is not

cross-border? As the EU’s external auditor, the ECA often reports on where the EU can do better.

The objective is to get everything running so smoothly … that the EU citizen does not even

notice it. The ECA’s reports might not always fully reflect the tremendous progress the EU and

its Member States have achieved in providing better ways to put freedom of movement into

practice. Sometimes only a major disruption, like for example ‘Brexit’, can make this progress

really visible, because it is then that people realise what they will lose.

In this Journal on transport — offered in a new format to be more user-friendly for mobile devices

— we try to cover a wide array of perspectives as far as transport and mobility is concerned.

Quite often from an auditor’s point of view, but also offering other perspectives: ranging from

academics to decision-makers at the European Parliament, in a Member State government

or at the European Commission. And also from a user’s perspective, either taking that role as

auditor when assessing a project or giving the floor to citizens using certain transport modes. In

many contributions some concerns shine through: EU transport being a patchwork instead of

a network; no level playing field between different transport modes; untransparent pricing and

service practices; transport being far from meeting environmental targets; maintenance issues

and safety concerns, to name just a few.

Reading all these contributions it becomes clear that everybody, without exception, seems

to need some form of transport. We are more and more addicted to mobility. The questions

are: which type of transport and who pays for it? In Luxembourg, citizens will enjoy free public

transportation from 2020 onwards. But even here mobility does not come for free. There is

certainly an environmental price to pay. Article 13 of the UN Declaration speaks about a right.

But rights often come with duties. In this case environmental duties. As they are reflected in

the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals 7 and 13, to be met in 2030. That is only 11 years from

now… ! So how environmentally friendly was your ‘movement’ today?

EUU, Alm.del - 2018-19 (1. samling) - Bilag 471: Rapport fra Den Europæiske Revisionsret januar 2019

ECA Journal Long Read

Reconciling transport and the environment

- a dilemma that is here to stay

By Professor Yves Crozet, Transport Urban Planning Economics Laboratory

of the University of Lyon

Electrification of the European car fleet

Transport is for many people a rather straightforward concept: getting people

and/or goods from A to B. But looking a bit closer many things come into play,

like technology, geography, safety, etc. And of course the means to realise

transportation ambitions. On the latter, on the economic aspects, Professor Yves

Crozet is a specialist. He has built up a research reputation in Europe, providing

advice to decision-makers regarding societal impact of transport and mobility

choices. In this Journal’s Long Read article he focuses on the environmental

costs of transport and whether EU objectives set for transportation and actions

to counter climate change can still be reconciled.

Transport as a driver for growth… but at which cost?

Mobility of people and goods is at the heart of Europe’s economic dynamic. For decades now,

the growth of transport flows has gone hand in hand with economic growth. For this reason,

annual public spending on mobility accounts for more than 1% of GDP; but transport also

generates multiple external costs, such as insecurity, noise, pollution, climate change and energy

dependency. As a result, public policies – in particular those that are implemented or promoted

by the European Union – aim to reduce these negative externalities. However, they also seek

to preserve the positive externalities of mobility for the economy and society that are linked

to economic growth. Reconciling these two objectives is at the heart of the White Papers on

Transport (2001 and 2011). As the European Parliament and the Commission will be renewed in

2019, it is now time to take stock of the situation. Is it not contradictory to encourage mobility

while at the same time trying to reduce its external costs? If economic and ecological interests

cannot be reconciled, we will be faced with a real dilemma.

Source: Pixabay

EUU, Alm.del - 2018-19 (1. samling) - Bilag 471: Rapport fra Den Europæiske Revisionsret januar 2019

Reconciling transport and the environment - a dilemma that is here to stay

Transport: striking a balance between profits and external costs

Transport has a positive macroeconomic

impact. Jobs that are directly or indirectly

linked to transport account for more than

10% of assets and GDP. The specific impact

on individuals’ daily lives is no less significant

because, as a component of mobility, transport

helps to bring places and activities together.

Journeys by motorists who drive to work or by

tourists who fly to their holiday destinations

only make sense by bringing locations and

activities together. When transport entails

lower costs, faster travel or greater comfort,

it encourages diversification and more

intense activity. It is thus responsible for

what economists call positive externalities or

external benefits. This leads in all developed

countries to an increase in the distances

travelled each year by passengers and goods1.

ECA Journal Short Read

Transport and economic development

–

transport brings economic activities and places

together, encouraging economic growth. But

it entails also external costs related to public

health and climate.

Reducing external costs

– decision makers

have overall four means to internalise external

costs: regulations, subvention, taxation and

tradable permits, each of them applied with

different success rates.

Reducing Green House Gas (GHG) emissions –

for this main climate objective there are four

key elements relevant: 1) reducing traffic; 2)

lowering unit vehicle emissions; 3) increasing

occupancy rates; 4) changing modes of

transport used.

Income increase and substitution effects –

these are the key elements that have offset

most efforts in the EU to reduce GHG emissions.

Reducing unit emissions or activities, i.e.

economic growth –

these are the two variables

that remain to achieve GHG emission goals.

Considering the setbacks linked to each one of

them – historically and politically – the EU faces

a difficult dilemma.

However, transport has a considerable

negative impact not only on public health

but also on biodiversity and climate change.

Accidents, pollution, noise, severance effects

and greenhouse gases – to name but a few

– are part of a long list of the external costs

of transport which account for tens of billions

of euros at EU level. Reducing these external

costs has therefore been a priority of European

policies for several decades. They have a well-equipped toolbox to help them achieve this goal,

as there are many ways of internalising external costs.

Reducing external costs: the toolbox

Once an external cost is recognised, the means of internalising it vary. There are four such means,

and, as Figure 1 shows, they combine technical or economic approaches on the one hand, and

price or quantity measures on the other. These are presented clockwise, from the most basic to

the most sophisticated.

Figure 1 - Means of internalisation

1 Y. Crozet, 2016,

Hyper-mobilité et politiques publiques: changer d’époque?

Economica, 192 p.

EUU, Alm.del - 2018-19 (1. samling) - Bilag 471: Rapport fra Den Europæiske Revisionsret januar 2019

Reconciling transport and the environment - a dilemma that is here to stay

The simplest and most obvious form of internalisation is

regulation,

which can go as far as

prohibition, e.g. of dangerous goods, vehicles or behaviour. This means intervening upstream

of economic stakeholders, e.g. by making seatbelts compulsory for manufacturers and drivers/

passengers, or by introducing regular roadworthiness tests for vehicles. Transport is thus highly

regulated in terms of driving licences, the Highway Code, vehicle weight and length, speed,

drink-driving, parking, engine noise etc.

A second, widely endorsed, method is to

subsidise

an activity that is supposed to reduce the

external costs of transport. This is the case of public transport in urban areas, which is regarded as

more environmentally friendly than cars. However, the relevance of public transport is confined to

densely populated areas: bus, tram or metro systems cannot be extended

ad infinitum.

Similarly,

in order to replace the internal combustion engine with its electric equivalent, the price to pay in

the form of grants for car buyers would be very high if sales were to become significant.

The third method –

taxation

- also affects prices, but aims to be profitable for society. However,

although very effective, this method is less popular, as it entails environmental taxes (also known

as Pigouvian taxes, after the English economist A.C. Pigou [1877-1959] who first proposed the

idea almost 100 years ago). Although not explicitly included, fuel taxes can be classified under

this category, as they are a major source of fiscal revenue and encourage motorists to reduce

their fuel consumption and the resulting pollution.

The fourth form of internalisation –

tradable permits

- affects prices only indirectly because

it mainly affects quantities. If it is possible accurately to measure and monitor the quantity of

pollution emitted by a given source, why not assign a maximum emissions quota to each polluter?

This ensures total emissions remain below a tolerable threshold, while allowing polluters to trade

their emissions quotas on a market like the EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS).

The European Union has used the four means available in the internalisation toolbox, but the first

two have been more successful than the last two, which are more difficult for people to accept.

Regulation and grants: simple solutions

Regulation has been the most successful tool for implementing European and national policies.

The best example of this is improved road safety. For example, France has seen a fivefold

reduction in road deaths since 1972, even though traffic has increased fourfold over the same

period. The risk of dying in a road accident has therefore fallen by a factor of 20. This is due

to proactive policies regulating not only vehicles themselves but also the way they are used:

maximum speeds have been reduced on all categories of road, and measures have been taken to

combat drink-driving and various forms of road crime. However, the number of people killed and

injured on Europe’s roads remains high, and this explains why new regulations – such as points-

based systems with stricter penalties – are being introduced on a regular basis.

In terms of pollution, regulation has also been effective in reducing unit emissions from new

vehicles. Between the Euro 0 (1990) and Euro VI (2013) standards, unit engine pollutant emissions

from heavy vehicles were drastically reduced: by factors of 36 for nitrogen monoxide (NOx), 7.5

for carbon monoxide (CO), 18.5 for hydrocarbons (HC) and 36 for particulates (see Table 1). This

led to a significant reduction in total pollutant emissions. In France, emissions from the transport

sector fell between 1990 and 2015 by the following proportions: NOx -60%, CO -90%; sulphur

dioxide -88%, lead -99%, and particulates between -51% and -66%, depending on size

. However,

these results do not compensate for the so-called ‘Dieselgate’ scandal. The sophisticated

software that car manufacturers used to approve vehicles enabled several of them to falsify their

real engine emissions. And in many countries, including France, pollution in urban areas often

remains above acceptable levels for the public health.

Thus, in February 2017 the European Commission sent a final warning – the last step before referral

to the European Court of Justice – to several EU Member States including France, Germany, Spain,

Italy and the United Kingdom. All were accused of exceeding maximum pollution thresholds too

often in big cities, in particular for NOx and particulate matter. The Commission drew attention

to the fact that ‘400 000 citizens die prematurely each year in the EU because of poor air quality.’

2 Source:

CITEPA

https://www.citepa.org/fr/activites/inventaires-des-emissions/secten#Evolution

EUU, Alm.del - 2018-19 (1. samling) - Bilag 471: Rapport fra Den Europæiske Revisionsret januar 2019

Reconciling transport and the environment - a dilemma that is here to stay

In France, for instance, an estimated 48 000 premature deaths are attributed each year to fine

particulate matter. The EU has singled out 19 urban areas in France – including Paris, Grenoble,

Lyon and Marseille – that exceed authorised pollution levels. The cities concerned will be

required to reduce traffic volumes, which they could do by means of road charges and urban

tolls. However, they are more likely to resort to legislation to ban the vehicles that pollute the

most. At the same time, governments have developed systems of grants for purchasing electric

or hybrid vehicles, and have continued to subsidise public transport in the hope of promoting a

shift towards cleaner modes of transport.

Table 1 - Changes in emission standards for heavy vehicles in the EU

Standard

Reference text

(directives)

88/77

91/542 (A)

91/542 (B)

1999/96

Regulation (EC)

No 595/2009

Data of

application

(all types)

01-10-1990

01-10-1993

01-10-1996

01-10-2001

01-10-2006

01-10-2009

31-12-2013

NOx

(g/kWh)

14,4

3,5

0,4

(g/kWh)

11,2

4,9

2,1

1,5

(g/kWh)

2,4

1,23

1,1

0,66

0,46

0,13

Particulate

matter

0,36

0,15

0,13

0,02

0,01

Euro 0

Euro I

Euro II

Euro III

Euro IV

Euro V

Euro VI

One question that arises is how effective regulatory measures and grants actually are. In order

to achieve the desired results, would it be better to ban the oldest vehicles from the road, or

to replace them more quickly with the aid of grants? Has the time not now come to combine

taxation with the usual tools of regulation and grants?

The fact is that, as far as environmental pollution is concerned, public policies appear to be

inconsistent. On the one hand, politicians talk in alarmist terms about the costs of pollution and

climate change; on the other hand, however, the measures taken to deal with such issues are

extremely conservative, being largely confined to technical aspects even though economic tools

would be much more powerful. This is illustrated by the experience of Stockholm’s urban toll:

since urban road pricing was introduced there in 2006, the city of Stockholm has seen a 25%

reduction in both traffic and pollutant emissions. Why has this system not been replicated in

Europe more often?

The limited success of charging and tradable permits

Since the 1990s, the European Union has funded considerable research into mobility pricing with

a view to internalising external costs. Urban tolls have thus been presented as a relevant solution

(see Box 1), as have road-use charges for heavy goods vehicles (the

Eurovignette

Directive). Indeed,

the European Parliament plans to amend the Directive so that such charges are no longer fixed,

but depend on the distance travelled by vehicles and thus on the actual level of greenhouse gas

emissions.

Charging tools do exist, then, but they are rarely used. Urban tolls apply only in London,

Stockholm, Oslo and Valetta, and partially in cities such as Milan. Very few local politicians cite

urban tolls as one of their objectives for the years to come.

EUU, Alm.del - 2018-19 (1. samling) - Bilag 471: Rapport fra Den Europæiske Revisionsret januar 2019

Reconciling transport and the environment - a dilemma that is here to stay

Box 1 - Urban tolls

Urban tolls are economists’ preferred tool for reducing the social costs of transport in dense

areas. Today, there are dozens of urban charges around the world (especially in Europe and

Asia) in a wide range of situations. Urban tolls differ by:

Purpose: the objective of urban tolls may be to finance new infrastructure, cut congestion or

reduce environmental pollution. While the Rome or Milan tolls are examples of measures that

prioritise the environment, most tolls (Singapore, London and Stockholm) seek to cut road

congestion, with lower emissions as a joint objective.

Spatial coverage: tolls may apply either to specific infrastructure (Sydney) or to a specific

geographical area (London), or be payable as soon as vehicles pass through certain locations

(Oslo and Stockholm). However, the zones where urban tolls apply often occupy only a very

small part of the surrounding metropolitan area.

Charging structure: some tolls are fixed (Dubai), while others depend on the distance travelled

(Santiago); some tolls operate 24 hours a day, while others vary during the day and/or from

one day to the next, depending on traffic speed (Singapore); some tolls are the same for all

vehicles (Sydney), while others vary by size and/or engine type (Milan and Rome); and some

systems offer exemptions (London), while in other places (Singapore) all road users have to

pay.

Technology: the two main ways of collecting and monitoring compliance with tolls are based

either on a card or a chip system in vehicles (Bergen and Tokyo), or on an optical recognition

system for registration plates (London and Valletta). Progress on GPS-type satellite technologies

is currently being incorporated into Singapore’s urban charging system.

Tolls have a significant effect on traffic levels. Whether in London (-16%), Milan (around -15%),

Singapore (-45%) or Tokyo (-10%), the introduction of tolls was followed by a significant drop in

traffic (and sometimes a switch to cleaner engines, as in Stockholm). Urban tolls often have a

beneficial effect on air quality (in Milan, NOx emissions fell by 11% and PM

emissions by 14%).

Most cities have seen similar increases in public transport use (+4.5% in Stockholm, +5% in Rome

and +5% in London), while toll receipts (80 million euros/year in Singapore and 135 million

euros/year in London) have made it possible to offer better modal alternatives. However, despite

these genuine successes, urban toll investment and operating costs are often a major item of

expenditure (46% of revenue in London, 55% in Milan and 100% or more in Valletta), with the

choice of optical recognition technologies having a potentially detrimental effect on the socio-

economic situation.

An increasingly frequent topic of discussion, not only in Luxembourg, but also in Brussels, Paris

and Germany, is the possibility of free public transport. However, this type of measure has very

little impact on the modal shift

. In those cities where public transport is free, neither road

congestion nor pollutant emissions are falling. This type of measure therefore mainly shows

public policymakers’ aversion to road charges and their preference for awarding grants. Thus, In

Rotterdam, a ‘negative toll’ is being tested in the form of grants for those who agree not to use

their cars. The question which then arises is where the public funds allocated to this policy will

originate.

As regards road and motorway charges for heavy goods vehicles, the results are also mixed. In

2014, France abandoned its eco-road tax project, which was modelled on Germany’s. However,

even in Germany, despite the ‘toll collect’ (LKW Maut) bringing in 5 billion euros a year, Heavy

Goods Vehicle (HGV) traffic has not fallen. Charging policies are therefore subject to two types

of limitation: not only are they rarely implemented, but when they are, their impact is limited

because demand remains strong despite the higher charges. I explain why further below.

This type of remark also applies to air transport, which is growing very rapidly in all European

countries. One explanation for this veritable boom is the downward trend in ticket prices. Lower

fuel consumption and higher seat-occupancy ratios have made it possible to pass on major

productivity gains to customers. The fact that aviation fuel is not taxed has, of course, facilitated

this transfer. This is why the EU proposed that a global emissions trading system (ETS) be set up

at a globa level, although opposition from countries such as China, the United States and Russia

has prevented this from happening. However, the fact remains that even an increase in the cost

of aviation fuel would have had only a modest impact on air traffic. At current prices per tonne

of CO2, a carbon tax (about €30 per tonne) on air transport would entail only a slight increase

(barely 10%) in ticket prices.

3 T. Mucanu, Ch. Winkler, T. Kuhnimhof, 2018, The travel demand impacts of fare-free regional transport in

Germany, International Transport (70).

EUU, Alm.del - 2018-19 (1. samling) - Bilag 471: Rapport fra Den Europæiske Revisionsret januar 2019

Reconciling transport and the environment - a dilemma that is here to stay

Can economic growth be reconciled with climate change?

Under the COP 21 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the European Union has

committed itself to significantly reducing CO2 emissions, in particular from transport. By

2030, transport, which accounted for 60% of the EU’s emissions in 2014, is expected to reduce

its emissions by 30% when compared with 2005 levels. However, this objective seems very

ambitious in the light of recent developments. Although emissions fell in 2009-2011 due to the

economic downturn, they subsequently picked up again as economic growth resumed. Thus, in

2017, France’s transport emissions were only slightly lower than in 2000. This means that even if

emissions growth can be avoided, any reduction is much more difficult. We will demonstrate this

by highlighting the failure of the modal shift that has been a central objective of public policy for

the last 20 years. As the limitations not only of the modal shift but also of pricing have become

clear, what other options are available (see Box 2)? Will lower unit vehicle emissions and higher

occupancy rates suffice? Or will mobility and thus economic growth also have to be curbed?

Box 2 - Four key ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions

The overall objective of reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the transport sector can be

broken down into a few key variables. For each type of transport (passengers or goods) and for each

mode of transport (road, rail, water, air, etc.), total emissions depend on a share of traffic – in passenger-

kilometres (pkm) or tonne-kilometres (tkm) – multiplied by unit emissions per pkm or per tkm. These

unit emissions are calculated by taking into account the unit emissions of the various vehicles and the

occupancy rate. This gives the following formula:

With the formula provided in

Box 2,

the reduction in total emissions is easy to calculate. For each

mode of transport, the solution entails:

reducing traffic

(passenger-kilometres or tonne-kilometres);

lowering unit vehicle emissions; or

increasing occupance rates;

In terms of overall mobility one can also

organise a vast modal shift,

i.e. a progressive

reduction in the traffic generated by modes of transport that structurally emit the most

pollutants towards those that emit the fewest because they consume the smallest

quantities of fossil fuels.

This fourth way – the modal shift – has been prioritised by the EU since the 1990.

The limitations of the modal shift

The modal shift was central to the EU’s 2001 and 2011 White Papers on Transport. This was

particularly the case for goods, which were supposed to switch from road to rail and water on

a massive scale. To this end, the European Union identified corridors along which transport

infrastructure – mainly rail – needed to be built or improved so as to create a genuine trans-

European transport network (TEN-T). For passengers, high-speed rail projects had the same

objective, i.e. to offer an alternative to intra-European air travel. With its emphasis on the

development of public transport, the modal shift also concerned passengers in urban areas.

As the end of the decade approaches, the results of the modal shift are far removed from the

original objectives, as a report recently submitted to the European Parliament makes clear

. The

introduction to the report stresses that:

‘the

modal share

of road, rail and inland waterway transport remained

substantially unchanged

between 1996 and 2016, both for passenger and freight transport, with road transport showing a

slight increase. Looking at future projections, road transport is expected to keep its predominant

position both for the passenger and freight sectors.’

4 Research for the TRAN Committee - Modal shift in European transport: a way forward, Study requested

by the TRAN Committee, Policy Department for Structural and Cohesion Policies, Directorate-General for

Internal Policies, PE 629.182 - November 2018, 174 p.

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Reconciling transport and the environment - a dilemma that is here to stay

The results are not entirely negative, though. In city centres in particular, vehicle traffic and

pollutant emissions have fallen, at the same time as public transport and soft mobility (walking

and cycling) have developed. However, the further one moves away from densely populated

areas, the more difficult it is for rail to compete with road or air. This is illustrated by two examples:

road freight transport and long-distance passenger transport.

As far as the transport of goods is concerned, the star pupil in the European class is Germany. In

the case of rail, the success of German freight operators (with a 40% increase in traffic between

2000 and 2017) is indeed impressive (at the same time in France, rail traffic fell by 40%). However,

this performance is not all that it seems to be, as road transport’s share of the market has not

fallen. If a modal shift has taken place, it has not been from road to rail, but from water to rail, as

the table below shows. This is worrying in view of the ambitions which the European Union set

for itself in the 2011 White Paper. The fact is that roads seem likely to retain their dominance in

the foreseeable future, for the simple reason that they are the only mode of transport that offers

a door-to-door solution for goods – which cannot transport themselves – without the need for

offloading. Furthermore, the road network provides access to the country’s entire territory, which

is not true of the railways.

Table 2 - Change in market share for freight transport in Germany

2000

15%

18%

67%

2005

12%

18.1%

69.9%

2010

10.8%

18.7%

70.5%

2015

9.2%

19.5%

71.3%

2016

8.8%

18.8%

72.4%

Water

Rail

Road

Source: Eurostat

Another structural limitation of rail freight is the development of supply chains, where warehouses

play a key role. The fact is that goods rarely travel directly from manufacturer to customer. Given

the large volumes involved, they make several short trips of a few hundred kilometres from

one warehouse to another before they reach their final destination. Rail transport is simply not

competitive in such cases, not only because warehouses lack line connections but also because

the distances covered are relatively small in relation to the scale at which rail is relevant (journeys

of over 500 km).

All this means that the various modes of transport do not operate on a level playing field. Indeed,

such are the advantages of road transport (i.e. speed, flexibility, reliability, adaptable volumes,

and no offloading) that it has become the most obvious solution.

In its special report 19/2018 , published in September 2018, the ECA has painted a critical picture

of the state of high-speed rail. The European HSR network tripled in size between 2000 and

2016, from 2 708 km to 8 200 km. At the same time, however, traffic only doubled in size to 124

billion pkm. Given this situation, does the network really need to triple in size between 2010 and

2030, as the 2011 White Paper recommends? The question arises because the network has been

extended since the beginning of the century at the same time as yields have been falling. After

reaching a maximum of 21.9 million pkm per km of network in 2001, the rate of increase dropped

by 50% in 2016

. This was the result of lines being brought into service with a potential that was

lower than the HSL relevance threshold of 9 million pkm/year. The report singles out three new

lines (Eje Atlántico, Madrid-León and Rhine-Rhône) whose traffic is well below this threshold.

However, many planned HSLs also fall into this category.

Income and substitution effects in the area of transport

The limited progression of traffic on HSR lines contrasts with the success of air transport, where

low-cost airlines have made high-speed rail less attractive, not because of direct point-to-

point competition – which is relatively infrequent – but because of the incredibly wide range

of destinations that customers are offered. These days, when Europeans are deciding where

to spend their holidays, they no longer start by choosing their destination, but consult airline

websites first to see what is on offer. Increasingly, they also choose a mode of transport before

deciding on their destination. This trend is clear in France, where TGV traffic increased by 12%

between 2008 and 2017, at the same time as passenger numbers between mainland France and

5 The figures for 2016 were 19.2 in France, 17.5 in Italy, 12.7 in Germany and 5 in Spain, a country which

has over-invested in HSR.

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Reconciling transport and the environment - a dilemma that is here to stay

Europe rose by 39%. The fact that more and more airports are connected to a high-speed rail line

means that the TGV now serves as a complement to rather than as a substitute for air transport,

as the 2011 White Paper stated.

In the area of air transport, EU policies run up against their own contradictions. For decades,

transport policies in developed countries have been based on the idea that the external benefits

of mobility should be extended to the entire population. Thus, road tolls disappeared in Britain

and France at the beginning of the 19th century; indeed, roads are still mostly toll-free in the UK.

In France, 99% of the national road network of more than one million kilometres is also still toll-

free. Extending transport networks obviously acts as an incentive to increase the number and

length of journeys.

At the same time, the EU is promoting the development of competition as a key factor in reducing

costs and increasing demand, as was found to be the case for air transport. Deregulation of the

sector has led to a significant drop in ticket prices. For intra-EU travel, passengers pay around

5 cents per kilometre, i.e. half as much as travelling by train (10 cents) and five times less than

travelling by car (around 25 cents). It is therefore hardly surprising that the number of passengers

in airports is increasing much faster than rail and road traffic.

There are two main reasons for greater passenger mobility:

•

The first is the trend towards a general increase in purchasing power: on average, the cost

of motorised mobility is falling. Thus, in France, recipients of the minimum wage in 1972

needed to work for one hour in order to purchase three litres of petrol. 47 years later, they

can buy six litres, and as their cars consume almost half as much fuel, they can drive four

times further per hour worked. As car prices have fallen, the ‘economic speed’

of passenger

cars has quadrupled;

As well as this income effect, there is also a substitution effect caused by the variation in

relative prices. Cheaper plane tickets have stimulated demand for air travel, whose economic

speed is now five times that of the automobile. For one hour of work, a recipient of the

minimum wage can now travel 200 km by air, but only 40 km by car.

•

The same combination of income and substitution effects has impacted the transport of goods:

•

As competition in road freight transport (RFT) began to develop in the 1970s, i.e. more than

20 years earlier than for rail transport, RFT achieved significant gains not only in terms of

productivity – a factor in price reductions – but also in terms of quality and reliability. Thus,

although road transport remains significantly more expensive than rail, it is rail – which

was still dominant in the mid-20th century – that has seen its market share steadily decline

because it is less adaptable.

The substitution effect was amplified by the equivalent of an income effect because the

per-tonne value of goods increased. As a consequence, the purchasing power of goods is

increasing. The cost of transport represents a declining percentage of the value of goods. It

is therefore not surprising that a more economical road-based service for goods has been

preferred over rail and its attendant constraints.

•

Reduce unit emissions… or growth

It is not just travellers but also goods that are now covering ever greater distances, primarily due

to economic growth. This means that purchasing power is increasing more than transport costs.

Deregulation and competition are also factors here, as they have helped to lower the relative

prices of the modes of transport that rely most on fossil fuels, i.e. road and air. The equation in

Box 2 leaves only two means of reducing CO2 emissions from transport: one is technical and the

other is economic.

The technical solution entails reducing unit vehicle emissions while increasing their load factor.

This is exactly what air transport has achieved over the last 20 years. However, as traffic has grown

significantly, CO2 emissions from aircraft – although they have barely increased – still account for

10% of transport emissions as jet engines still consume fossil fuels. In order to reduce unit vehicle

emissions, their source of energy therefore needs to change, which is why the emphasis is now

on electrifying cars and – to a certain extent – lorries. In order to achieve this, the European Union

6 Crozet Y., 2017, Économie de la vitesse: Ivan Illich revisité, in L’économie politique n°76, pp. 24-37.

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Reconciling transport and the environment - a dilemma that is here to stay

is envisaging binding standards for car manufacturers so that all new vehicles sold emit less and

less CO2 per kilometre. Several countries, including France, are envisaging banning the sale of

vehicles powered by internal combustion engines from 2040, the aim being that all cars should

be electric by 2050.

However, what are the chances of such an objective being achieved and – even if it can be –

what will the actual impact on CO2 emissions be? These two questions are worth asking. First,

because announcing the electrification of cars is reminiscent of the announcement of the modal

shift 15 or 20 years ago; and second, because electric motors use electricity that may have been

generated from fossil fuels. Battery production and recycling are also sources of CO2 emissions.

It is therefore highly likely that climate commitments in the transport sector will be difficult to

achieve by purely technical means.

There remains the economic solution, but this entails calling into question the very principle

of economic growth. This could take the form of regulations and fiscal disincentives that are

explicitly designed to reduce economic activity – and thus the flow of people and goods – by

curbing income growth. However, such a scenario is not currently on the public policy agenda as

it has significant adverse effects, not least in terms of public revenue.

Dilemma likely to remain very pertinent

A lucid assessment of the transport sector suggests that it will be very difficult for EU Member

States to achieve their commitments to reduce CO2 emissions. The limited results achieved over

the last 20 years suggest a need for prudence in the face of optimistic pronouncements. The

emphasis has now switched from the modal shift to electrification. However, even if electrification

develops, it will be no panacea.

It is therefore highly likely that in a few years we will be faced with a dilemma that will force us to

clarify the current ambiguity: either we commit to negative economic growth in order to reduce

passenger and freight traffic, or we acknowledge our inability to reduce our reliance on fossil

fuels to the extent that we had hoped. Although such an alternative is now increasingly likely, it

is difficult for policymakers to accept, particularly when they ponder the well-known aphorism

by Cardinal de Retz (1613-1679): 'It is to one’s own detriment that one ceases to be ambiguous.'

EUU, Alm.del - 2018-19 (1. samling) - Bilag 471: Rapport fra Den Europæiske Revisionsret januar 2019

Connecting transport modes and policy

areas – the ECA landscape review

on transport

Interview with Ladislav Balko, ECA Member

By Gaston Moonen

Ladislav Balko, ECA Member

Having published 13 special reports assessing EU transport issues the ECA

decided to bring together the key findings and recommendations from these

reports, together with further analysis, to distil the key challenges the EU

faces regarding transport and mobility issues. Food for thought for the next

European Commission, and thereafter, since transport policy decisions often

relate to the long term. The reporting ECA Member for the landscape review,

has been coordinating several of the special reports underlying the 2018

landscape review and explains where the two types of product connect and

both aim to help the EU provide better transport solutions for its citizens.

Building on many previous ECA reports

To reflect the teamwork that helped to put together the ECA landscape review on transport

Ladislav Balko invited three team members to participate in the interview: the principal manager

involved, Pietro Puricella, Svetoslav Hristov, the head of task for this review, and Branislav Urbanič,

as head of his private office. All three were very much involved in all the work done.

Ladislav Balko stresses that, like the other landscape reviews the ECA published during the

last few years, also this review is meant to be a synthesis document. ‘It brings together our

knowledge and experience from past audit work, in this case 13 special reports in the fields of

transport, and other relevant information that is publicly available. ‘He then refers to EU policy

documents, reports from supreme audit institutions (SAIs), evaluations and statistics. ‘This was

my first landscape review as reporting Member. In the ECA’s audit chamber I work in – Investment

for Cohesion, Grown and Inclusion – this landscape review was identified as a high priority task.

Therefore I approached my role with particular care and respect. The main challenge was to help

achieving the right balance between synthesis and analysis of our previous work and the many

recommendations we made there, while adding relevant information from public sources and

paying attention not to present truly new audit findings.’ He adds that another difference with a

normal audit relate to the clearing process with the European Commission who is consulted to

ensure factual accuracy, but does not provide formal replies to this type of product.

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Interview with Ladislav Balko, ECA Member

In addition to the synthesis element, he points out that a landscape review stands out by the

broad range of topics covered. ‘From my perspective, the main particularity of this publication

was the broad range of topics covered. What I mean is that, while the main topic is transport, the

range of issues covered varied across the transport modes and was not limited to infrastructure

questions. In view of this broad range and variety, I found it a major challenge to formulate the

key challenges to be addressed, which we have formulated into six key challenges.’ With clearly

some pride he adds: ‘In my view, the audit team, under the leadership of Pietro Puricella and

Svetoslav Hristov, have done a great job here, but also in the rest of the review.’

For the ECA Member an important difference compared with

... a landscape review

special reports is that, besides not presenting new audit findings,

reiterates and deepens

landscape reviews can present cross-cutting issues from a broader

the impact of the

policy perspective, while a special reports often focuses on specific

earlier ECA products

topics within a policy area. ‘I would say that a landscape review

on the topic on which

reiterates and deepens the impact of the earlier ECA products on

it is based.

the topic on which it is based. This was also my impression during

the hearing in the European Parliament’s Budget and Control Committee on 7 January this year,

where the reactions of the contributing MEPs confirmed the pertinence of the topics we raise.’

He adds that for the Commission this discussion offered the possibility to point at actions it has

been undertaking to address those issues. ‘By doing so they actually also emphasize the impact

of our work!’

“

Transforming ambitions into achievements

As the title of the landscape review – Towards a successful transport sector in the EU: challenges

to be addressed – indicates the core of the landscape reviews are the six challenges identified.

While the ECA has been critical in several special reports, pointing to empty airports and seaports

and a patchwork of railway systems, Ladislav Balko believes that the EU has achieved a lot. ‘EU has

delivered on many transport projects as such. The problem lies often in the broader picture, i.e.

how these projects fit with, and complement, each other, and whether the respective network

as a whole can work smoothly thanks to those projects.’ He then refers to the missing links and

bottlenecks, to effective use of infrastructure projects built, to the ability of citizens to benefit

from their rights or smoothly claim and obtain compensation, etc. ‘And this is what we often

point out in our reports.’

Giving a concrete example of impact: ‘I am convinced that the new improved European

Deployment Plan for the European Rail Traffic Management System (ERTMS) is also the result of

our special report 13/2017 of which I was the reporting Member and our work leading to that

report. More broadly, I believe that our audits led to robust and pertinent recommendations that

help the Commission and the Member States to improve the transport policy implementation

and the way they manage EU spending on transport.’ He gives another example: ‘I believe that

our recommendations concerning the implementation of cross-border infrastructure projects

have also contributed to the initiation of the Commission’s proposal for regulation to streamline

the TEN-T implementation, for instance by simplifying granting of permits and procurement

procedures along borders. This proposal is now in the hands of the legislators.’

Ladislav Balko also underlines that there is only so much the

Funding from the

EU can do. ‘When we look at the numbers, for example in the

EU often serves as a

Multiannual Financial Framework, for transport, and compare

catalyst, the main

that with the overall sums of investments done in transport in

responsibility for the

and by the Member States, we have to be realistic. Funding from

funding lies in the

the EU often serves as a catalyst, the main responsibility for the

Member States.

funding lies in the Member States. The EU role is to coordinate

the policy, and maybe this needs to be done better. But this also goes for many EU activities in

other policy areas.’ He then gives a concrete example where such coordination is needed. ‘One

of the problems we saw with ERTMS is that when crossing a border the driver of the train is

changed, due to the different languages that are spoken in the country travelled through. While

in air traffic the international language spoken is English, the is not the case in international rail

traffic, and a train crossing the border from Slovakia to Austria needs to change drivers. With

consequences for the efficiency of railway traffic.’

“

Realising a truly connected transport network is very important, according to Ladislav Balko,

also for the functioning of the European Single Market. ‘When I was working for a governmental

agency in Slovakia we tried to attract big multinationals to the eastern part of Slovakia, for

example to build a car plant. A key element for their decision-making was the quality of the

EUU, Alm.del - 2018-19 (1. samling) - Bilag 471: Rapport fra Den Europæiske Revisionsret januar 2019

Interview with Ladislav Balko, ECA Member

connections to move the goods. And, as we found out for some

parts of Slovakia: if the connections are not there, investors are

not interested to move into a specific area.’ He adds that in several

of its reports the ECA has pointed out for realistic planning by the

EU, to match the needs with limited resources, while aiming for

innovative and sustainable solutions.

“

... if the connections

are not there, investors

are not interested to

move into a specific

area.

When it comes to implementing EU goals in and through the Member States Ladislav Balko

believes that sometimes the EU can do more in communicating, coordinating, and convincing

the Member States that the EU-level goals and ambitions are not in contrast, but in line with those

at the national level. ‘In the end, the EU is composed of its Member States, it is not something

alien to them. The ultimate beneficiaries of EU actions in the field of transport are the citizens in

the Member States, and this message must be communicated more clearly and convincingly to

all relevant players at national, regional and local level.’

Impact assessments and cost/benefit analysis

An often returning remark in many ECA reports regarding

transport concerns the use of impact assessments and

cost/benefit analysis. Ladislav Balko points out: ‘Transport

infrastructure requires significant financial resources so it

is crucial to analyse all major costs and benefits correctly in

advance and use that in the decision-making process. Making

unrealistic estimates can result in undeliverable targets, over-

sized or under-used projects, costs increases and delays - in

other words, less value for money.’

“

Making unrealistic

estimates can result in

undeliverable targets,

over-sized or under-used

projects, costs increases

and delays - in other

words, less value for

money.

Branislav Urbanič makes the link to another well-known concept: EU added value: ‘If political and

financing decisions are not based on serious and solid ex-ante impact assessments, including

detailed market analysis of the potential demand and taking account of relevant experience and

best practices, they result in limited EU added value, poor sustainability and deadweight.’ He

adds that the latter is an anomaly, which the ECA has consistently criticized at several occasions,

and means that EU money finances actions that would have taken place anyway with other

resources.

As to cost/benefit analysis, Svetoslav Hristov remarks that the ECA has consistently recommended

its importance in almost all the 13 reports covered by the landscape review. ‘If you open the

13 reports we produced we consistently have been recommending this kind of advance

assessment of cost, benefits and impact. Such assessment should be made before and used in

the political decision making process on a project. As ECA we have raised the issue, making clear

recommendations to the Commission that something needs to be done to improve their use. But

how the authorities in the Member States take this up is difficult to influence.’

Pietro Puricella underlines that the challenge is to convince the decision makers in the Member

States that the ex-ante assessments are a real tool to help deciding on a project, and not just a

technical requirement that needs to be covered. ‘It needs to support the decision maker and the

financing of the project. This is a different way of thinking and progressively we see that some

Member States authorities are quicker to take this up than others.’ He also points out that the

level of involvement of a Member State depends very much on the financing of the project. ‘For

ERDF financing, the Member State needs to see whether the supporting technical justification

is valid or not. Ideally the two levels – Commission and Member State – should work together.’

On this point, he gives an example where the cost/benefit approach used by the ECA was

actually followed by a Member State. ‘This Member State took the methodology for ex-ante

impact assessment the ECA used for assessing maritime investments and applied it to rail. The

outcome was that they stopped the idea of developing a completely new high speed rail line,

before asking for EU financing. Instead, they decided to upgrade the existing line. The high speed

rail line would have saved only a few minutes for travelling from point A to B, compared with

upgrading the existing line. The latter saved probably close to € 1 billion of tax payers’ money.’

Strategic outlook binding various policy areas

When it comes to the variety of topics covered in the landscape review Ladislav Balko is keen

to point out that they range from findings linked to different transport modes to passenger

rights. ‘I think that the quality of transport service we get as passengers and the ease and speed

EUU, Alm.del - 2018-19 (1. samling) - Bilag 471: Rapport fra Den Europæiske Revisionsret januar 2019

Interview with Ladislav Balko, ECA Member

with which we can claim and receive compensation where our rights have been breached are

very important things that affect citizens very directly and perceivably. This is precisely why this

report, but also a report such as the one on air quality, which we published in September 2018,

raised so much interest.’ In his view this confirms that the ECA made the right choices in selecting

these audit tasks.’ We are now in the process of establishing our annual work programme for 2020

and I am sure we will consider the concerns citizens have on relevant topics like this.’

When discussing the impact of demographic developments in the EU on transportation needs

Ladislav Balko points out that, while populations might shrink in certain areas, the expectation

is that big cities and their surroundings will become even more densely populated. ‘This will

require action by Member States and the transport sector to adapt to and anticipate these

developments. In spite of a shrinking population, overall, the Commission is expecting an

increase in transport activities. It projects an increase of 42% for passengers and 60% for inland

freight activity between 2010 and 2050.’ He adds that the ECA takes such developments into

account in the selection of its performance tasks. ‘I refer for example to our special report 1/2014

on urban transport projects and to the ongoing audit on urban mobility.’

Such audits may also trigger different approaches to assess the choices made and impact

achieved. In this respect, Pietro Puricella refers to the use made of the survey tool for the special

report on passenger rights. ‘For our reports we may decide, on an ad hoc basis, to use surveys.

For the passenger report, we had two surveys directly addressed to the public. One survey we

did with the help of an external company, resulting in a statistically representative picture for the

whole EU population, with over 10 000 people participating.’ As for the second survey, he explains

that it concerned reactions from respondents sent directly to the ECA regarding passenger rights

relating to a specific transport mode. ‘Considering the responses we received and the variety of

information, both surveys were a big success. And we might use the tool for future audits, but

this will be a case-by-case decision .’

Looking more at the strategic picture, Ladislav Balko raises

... the Europe 2020

a specific concern. ‘I am concerned, and I think I am not the

Strategy expires soon -

only one, that the Europe 2020 Strategy expires soon - at the

at the end of next year.

end of next year. And there seems to be no successor strategy

And there seems to be

for the following period that would guide and coordinate the

no successor strategy for

EU’s various policies and initiatives between and within the

the following period...

different areas. For example, some of the key EU transport policy

objectives, such as the completion of the two layers of the trans-European transport network,

extend to 2030 and 2050.’ When it comes to meeting the environmental challenges that the

future poses, also regarding means of transport, he is hopeful. ‘I believe that transport is precisely

the one area that lends itself perfectly to pioneering and promoting new and environmentally

friendly technologies on a large scale.’

“

When it comes down to what the EU needs to consider for its strategy beyond 2020, the reporting

Member for the landscape review names some elements also raised in the review. ‘The EU needs

to coordinate Member State’s actions and co-finance transport projects that add value and will

be used effectively, based on careful ex-ante assessments, and with due regard to filling missing

links, removing bottlenecks, and taking account of environmental and demographic concerns.’

He underlines that in doing so the EU also needs to be realistic, matching relevant and achievable

objectives and priorities with available resources. Ladislav Balko points out that through its

reports the ECA is keen to provide input and feedback on how to achieve this. ‘We have some

very interesting ongoing audits on roads connecting European regions, on SESAR deployment,

on cross-border transport flagship infrastructures and multimodality. And I am sure that in our

annual work programme for 2020 we will come up with audit topics that will help the EU to

improve further and have an impact.’

EUU, Alm.del - 2018-19 (1. samling) - Bilag 471: Rapport fra Den Europæiske Revisionsret januar 2019

Moving from EU patchwork to

EU network

Interview with Henrik Hololei,

Director-General for Mobility and Transport,

European Commission

By Derek Meijers and Gaston Moonen

Henrik Hololei in his office

When it comes to moving people or goods across the Union the Commission’s

Directorate-General (DG) for Mobility and Transport enters the picture.

According to its Director-General, Henrik Hololei, the DG’s slogan

Connecting

Europe

says it all, identifying connectivity as a key element the EU project is all

about. Henrik Hololei has headed the DG, since 2015, and is more than willing

to share his views on how and where the EU can help in achieving greater EU

connectivity for its citizens.

EU successes and transport – connectivity as a public good

It might not come as a surprise that Henrik Hololei considers

... I lived 21 years without

transport as essential to the EU and its policy making. But the

the right to travel, when

European Commission’s Director- General for Mobility and

we were deprived of

Transport beefs up that claim with some clear arguments.

this connectivity. That is

‘Transport is something we tend to take for granted, but

maybe why I value it so

everything we do is usually related to transport, whether it is

much.

going to the office in the morning, moving goods around or

having fresh products in the supermarkets. Transport is all about connecting people, connecting

businesses.’ He considers connectivity to be one of the greatest public goods provided by the EU:

‘I can tell you this from my personal experience, I lived 21 years without the right to travel, when

we were deprived of this connectivity. That is maybe why I value it so much.’

“

For Henrik Hololei many of the EU successes relate to this connectivity. ‘When you ask people to

mention one of the things the EU has brought to them, they will very often name the European

Single Aviation market that brought cheap flights - and that is connectivity and the EU at its

best.’ For the Director-General the single European aviation area is an explicit example of an EU

achievement in transport. ‘And there is so much to do in the other transport modes to get down

Source: European Commission

EUU, Alm.del - 2018-19 (1. samling) - Bilag 471: Rapport fra Den Europæiske Revisionsret januar 2019

Interview with Henrik Hololei, Director-General for Mobility and Transport,

European Commission

the barriers and make sure that this connectivity is a reality in the whole territory of the EU.’ Then

laughing: ‘One reason why I like the slogan of DG MOVE, which is

Connecting Europe,

so much.’

Henrik Hololei considers the EU single market as a sine qua non condition for this connectivity.

‘For the future of transport the key words are seamless transport and multimodality.’ However,

when discussing some critical findings from ECA reports and from the Commission itself in its

progress reports, he underlines that progress, or the lack of it on these issues, needs to be put in an

appropriate timeframe. ‘When we look at the Commission’s White Paper of 2011, we are looking

at a document that set goals for 2030 and 2050, and, in 2015, when assessing it we concluded

that it was still fit for purpose and now we needed to concentrate on the implementation of its

actions.’

Changing world, new demands, new concepts

In his view 10 years will be the right time to re-evaluate its

goals, since the world around us and mobility and transport

as a concept have changed. ‘This change is firstly driven by the

whole issue of sustainability of transport, decarbonisation, air

quality, alternative fuels, alternative power trains and so on.

And secondly, by digitalisation.’ He believes that digitalisation

will also transform transport significantly. In the next ten

years, we will see a bigger change in transport than in the last

50 years. And it will be a change for the better!’

“

This change is firstly driven

by the whole issue of

sustainability of transport,

decarbonisation, air quality,

alternative fuels, alternative

power trains and so on.

Henrik Hololei quickly comes up with some examples of the effects of digitalisation in transport:

‘Drones. Once the market is open for the commercial use of drones, it will be a market with a value

of tens of billions of euros, and this will happen in the not too distant future.’ He also mentions

automation as a driver in transport. ‘Autonomous driving is going to change a lot; the logistics

are going to be far more efficient. Imagine when cars are talking to each other, ships are talking

to the ports, cars are talking to infrastructure, the whole infrastructure is talking to its parts! You

can optimise efficiently and at the same time diminish the emissions and make mobility more

sustainable.’ Also for air transport, he sees modernisation of air traffic management with digital

solutions. ‘We can increase efficiency in the skies even further.’

Moving to a real network

When discussing how to go from a transport patchwork

to a transport network, Henrik Hololei raises what he calls

... Member States only

think locally, within their

‘the third element’ next to sustainability and digitalisation in

own borders, but we

the changes he foresees: the physical infrastructure. ‘In our

need to think European,

physical infrastructure of trans-European networks we have

to incentivise policies,

to concentrate on removing the

bottlenecks and bridging the

together with financing...

missing links, in particular cross-border connections. In the

future even more than today. That is how we can actually

make

a patchwork into a network!’ For

him these missing links are the reason why there is still a patchwork. ‘Because Member States only

think locally, within their own borders, but we need to think European, to incentivise policies,

together with financing, focusing on what is European by nature.’

“

In this context, he brings up two other elements for these trans-European networks. ‘First, they

must be smart, meaning embracing the digital opportunities and enhancing them. And second,

they must be sustainable, meaning creating the necessary infrastructure for alternative fuels.’ For

him the EU is instrumental to achieving this around Europe, to making it real.

Interests, finances and impact

Discussing the possible differences between national and regional interests on the one hand

and EU interests on the other, it is clear Henrik Hololei knows what he is talking about, drawing

on his experience as a former Minister of Economic Affairs in Estonia. ‘We indeed have had some

very unfortunate examples in the past because the programme for Trans-European Networks

and the Regional Policy funding instruments had different perspectives and objectives leading

sometimes to separate interests. However, this has changed, thanks also to the deployment of

the Connecting Europe Facility. This is a big change!’ He first explains that the Connecting Europe

Facility only funds those projects that are on the trans-European networks, which means they

are only eligible for financing when adding European value to the network. ‘Secondly, we helped

EUU, Alm.del - 2018-19 (1. samling) - Bilag 471: Rapport fra Den Europæiske Revisionsret januar 2019

Interview with Henrik Hololei, Director-General for Mobility and Transport,

European Commission

to achieve coordination between the Connecting Europe Facility and the European Structural

Investment Funds.’ And here the Director-General stresses his appreciation for the work done by

the ECA. ‘In the different audits done on these networks by the ECA, you constantly pointed to

this coordination, the need for it and also the way to improve it, which helped us devise a more

sustainable policy.’

These regional interests also appear in, for example, air

transport. Henrik Hololei points out that on the one hand

... there are EU failures

among those airports

the single aviation market has contributed enormously to

which have hardly

connectivity in Europe. ‘But on the other hand there are EU

ever seen an airplane.

failures among those airports which have hardly ever seen an

Fortunately, that is not

airplane. Fortunately, that is not possible anymore. Over the last

possible anymore.

years we managed to change this to make sure that the money

is spent on those projects that are on the trans-European networks and goes to those Member

States which are strongly committed to complete such projects.’ He adds that the Connecting

Europe Facility’ relies on competitive calls for proposal, which allow the best quality projects to

be selected. In addition, the Connecting Europe Facility applies the concept of

use it or lose it:

‘If

you do not use the money for the purpose given you will have to pay it back and the money goes

to the projects which really add EU value. This creates additional pressure and Member States

have become much more conscious of this!’

“

When speaking about the Connecting Europe Facility Henrik Hololei puts things into perspective.

‘The facility is a very good tool but we also see that investment needs are very big. So increasing

the funding available in the form of grants under the Connecting Europe Facility can only help

to a certain extent to meet these high investment needs. What is going to change is that grants

will become a component of more blended financing models based on innovative financial

instruments aimed at leveraging other financial sources. For that you can turn for instance to the

European Investment Bank (EIB).’ He adds that for those projects that have a revenue stream one

can also involve the private sector and also use other financing models, and that commercially

viable projects should not be financed entirely with public money. ‘EU money and national funds

should be put where you have the missing links and bottlenecks and where there is no or less

commercial interest. That is how you build a network from the patchwork.’

Creating impact through EU legislation: examples of safety and passenger rights

Financing is one of the instruments available to the Commission,

legislation is another. Henrik Hololei refers to an aspect that he

We can be proud

that the European

considers it is essential to arrange at EU level, through legislation:

safety framework, in

safety. ‘I always say that in transport and mobility safety comes first.

whatever transport

Whenever passengers travel, they trust they are travelling in a safe

mode, is the best in the

system. We even have to do more to continue to guarantee the

world.

highest safety level possible. We can be proud that the European

safety framework, in whatever transport mode, is the best in the world. We have to keep it like

that, whether by legislative means, implementation, enforcement or financial support.’

“

However, safety as an objective throughout the Union is sometimes

also used as an impediment to changing the patchwork into a real

The safety argument

is sometimes used

network. Henrik Hololei: ‘The safety argument is sometimes used

to erect barriers that

to erect barriers that cannot be justified. The rail sector is maybe

cannot be justified. The

the worst example of that, where a large number of different

rail sector is maybe the

rules are designed to avoid competition in the market, which is

worst example of that...

blocking the creation of the single European rail area.’ However,

he underlines that the Commission is working to address this: ‘Through the implementation of

the ‘4

Railway Package’ we are making progress by cancelling a huge number of national rules

and inserting more European competence. This allows a smoother process for the certifications

that we need and they will boost the opening of the market.’

“

Henrik Hololei relates the safety issue to another, yet related topic the ECA published about in

November 2018: passenger rights. ‘The ECA report on this topic is a very useful tool to develop

this policy. I am quoting the reporting ECA Member, Mr Pufan, who said the EU’s commitment

to passenger rights is indisputable. I think in this area we have established a framework which

is unique in the world and serves in many countries as an example of best practice.’ However, he

believes there is still a lot of work to do. ‘In particular on the enforcement side, which is uneven

and - definitely - the strength of the national enforcement authorities varies.’

EUU, Alm.del - 2018-19 (1. samling) - Bilag 471: Rapport fra Den Europæiske Revisionsret januar 2019

Interview with Henrik Hololei, Director-General for Mobility and Transport,

European Commission

Putting it in a historical perspective he underlines that 15 years ago passenger rights related really

to only one mode of transport - aviation, while they are now valid for the four modes of public

transport: air, rail, water/maritime and bus. ‘Certain core rights are also common to all modes,

while the specific features of each sector need of course to be taken into account. However, it is

fundamental that these rights are known and used by all citizens of the EU. That is why we have

been running information campaigns quite proactively, including using digital means to raise

awareness of people’s rights.’

For Henrik Hololei passenger rights is a good example of how the EU has added value: ‘We would

probably not be enjoying these rights across the EU if these proposals had not been made at

European level.’ But he makes it clear there is still a lot to achieve: ‘For the air passenger rights

the regulation is already quite old. Six years ago, we put forward a proposal to modernise it. And,

unfortunately, the proposal is still in the debating phase in the Council six years later. This is not

a great example of how Member States have been tackling this issue.’

Changes and challenges

In 2010, Henrik Hololei was already working on EU transport and

... I think the biggest

mobility issues, then as the head of cabinet of Commissioner Sim

positive change has

Kallas. When discussing what in his view has been the biggest

been the creation of

change since then he responds quickly. ‘I think the biggest

the ‘Connecting Europe

positive change has been the creation of the Connecting Europe

Facility.

Facility. This financial instrument has made a difference! An

instrument that really helps to promote pan-European seamless

networks, as it supports the whole trans-European network policy.’ With a certain pride, he adds:

‘It is also an instrument where, in the evaluation of the policy with the Member States, not a

single Member State claimed not to have profited from the system. Even at a time when many

funding programmes have been cancelled or reduced, at least in the Commission’s proposal for

a future long-term budget, the amounts for the Connecting Europe Facility have been increased.’

“

Speaking about the future, this is also what the ECA’s landscape review on transport looks at,

identifying six challenges the EU still faces. When asked which of these six challenges is the key

one from his perspective Henrik Hololei hesitates: ‘I think that the need to improve planning,

implementation and monitoring of the EU funded projects more generally is the key challenge.

The landscape report was also very useful for us and for our planning, because we also need to

look at the future to be able to improve the situation in all areas.’ He underlines that he finds these

reports really valuable. ‘Yes, you cannot implement all at the same time but such a review gives

you a very helpful direction.’

EU transport policy compared

Sometimes new ideas come up when looking away from the beaten track, for example comparing

the European transport and mobility situation with elsewhere, for example with the United States

where the current government has put transport infrastructure high on the political agenda. The

Director-General believes that, from a comparative perspective, Europe is doing pretty well. ‘One

of the big advantages we have is that we have the Multiannual Financial Framework - the long-

term EU budget - which creates predictability for a longer period, which helps with planning

projects and finding financing, also because it is predictable.’ He mirrors this with budgetary

discussions, for instance in the United States: ‘There they can become extremely political and the

financing of big projects is then subject to these disputes. That lowers the interest of potential

private sector participants because they are not sure whether this project is going to be finished

or not. So there we definitely have an advantage.’

Henrik Hololei continues that for the trans-European network policy as a whole people from all

around the world ask how the EU did it. ‘We work a lot with Asian countries, for example with

the ten Southeast Asian countries who have borders with each other. Of course, there it is very

difficult to do joint infrastructure projects. Nevertheless, they ask us how we did it and if we can

share our experiences with them, which we are more than happy to do.’ He adds that, just a few

weeks ago, the trans-European transport core network was extended to the Eastern Partnership

countries. This follows a common definition of the trans-European network with Switzerland,

Norway, Iceland and the Western Balkans. ‘So they already go beyond European borders and are

very much welcomed by our immediate neighbours.’

Push for sustainable modes

One of the transport modes where the Director-General thinks that the Commission needs

to keep pushing is rail – to create a single European rail area. ‘We need to push the rail sector

EUU, Alm.del - 2018-19 (1. samling) - Bilag 471: Rapport fra Den Europæiske Revisionsret januar 2019

Interview with Henrik Hololei, Director-General for Mobility and Transport,

European Commission

and mostly the Member States to get rid of the technical and

We really need to get

regulatory barriers. 17% of freight is carried by rail and, despite

more freight from the

our efforts and financial support, this has not changed over

roads to the rails, which

the last years. That is simply not good enough!’ He underlines

would be good for the

that rail - together with inland waterways - are the most

environment but also

environmentally sustainable means of transport. ‘We really

help in enhancing

need to get more freight from the roads to the rails, which

road safety and easing

would be good for the environment but also help in enhancing

congestion.’

road safety and easing congestion.’ He makes it clear that the

barriers that still exist in rail have a negative impact on the reliability of the sector. ‘But things

are improving and increasing rail freight is and continues to be a very important priority for us.’

“

As a positive example of where the potential for future development is being explored, Henrik

Hololei refers to the inland waterways. ‘I have great sympathy for inland waterways, for instance

in the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium, where this positive entrepreneurial spirit is present

in the sector, whereas it is not necessarily always present in other modes of transport in Europe.

Though the sector faces many difficulties they are trying to realise their potential, and the

Commission has always been a good partner to them. We provide a clear European policy

framework and EU support.’

Sustainability is an essential focal point in many policy areas and this is no different in transport

and mobility. Henrik Hololei makes it clear that this also affects the financial flows: ‘First of all,

for the future of the Connecting Europe Facility, we are talking about spending up to 60% on

those projects that are environmentally sustainable. Secondly, the trans-European networks

have to be smart and sustainable. And thirdly, digitalisation will increase efficiency and hopefully

reduce congestion and in this way also contribute to enhancing sustainability in the mobility and

transport sector.’

Henrik Hololei realises that often transport and environment

may be depicted as opposite interests but he believes it is

important to see them together. ‘We have to realise that we are

able to develop a more environmentally sustainable mobility and

transport sector, decreasing the footprint on the environment.

This will not happen overnight, but we have to be very committed

to that. Europe is the leader in the world in pushing this agenda.’

“

... we are able to develop

a more environmentally

sustainable mobility [...]

Europe is the leader in

the world in pushing this

agenda.

He points out that the Commission has put out proposals to advance this agenda, for example

regarding the new emission standards for vehicles. ‘For example the ‘clean vehicles directive.’ This

helps manufacturers to embrace innovation and supply low-emission vehicles to the market.’

Another proposal he refers to concerns alternative fuel infrastructures to encourage Member

States to invest in alternative fuels and make them more available. ‘We have already taken and

will take further initiatives, but obviously, we can do more. And we will do more! I am quite

positive that for the next Commission this will remain one of its cornerstone priorities.’

EU added value as key criteria

When it comes to how the ECA, through its audits, can help the Commission to achieve all these

EU objectives in the transport and mobility field, including the sustainability conditions, Henrik

Hololei believes that the Commission has already benefitted greatly from the many ECA reports

published in the area during the last years. As far as the future is concerned he has some concrete

thoughts. ‘Firstly, our good mutually supportive relationship needs to continue. Secondly, at the

Commission, we need to be able to extract a maximum out of the audits that will be done in the

future.’ As a third point, he underlines the need to promote a pan-European approach. ‘We have

the single European market, we must have a single European transport area, we must have the

single European rail area, we must have the single European sky. And we must have common

European principles, for example on passenger rights.’

He identifies a key criterion in all these activities: ‘All this is promoting European added value,

where you can discover many links to the transport and mobility sector.’ He concludes that he

is keen to work with the ECA: ‘I am looking forward to use ECA findings, recommendations and

suggestions to move the EU transport and mobility sector to a new level.’

EUU, Alm.del - 2018-19 (1. samling) - Bilag 471: Rapport fra Den Europæiske Revisionsret januar 2019

Taking a broader view of transportation

and the key challenges to be addressed:

an auditor’s landscape perspective

By Svetoslav Hristov, Investment for Cohesion, Growth and Inclusion Directorate

Transport is a strategic sector of the EU economy, which directly affects the

everyday lives of all EU citizens. This makes good transport systems a cornerstone

of European integration and a necessary condition for the functioning of the

European single market. This is also why transport and mobility issues have

featured in many ECA special reports. Svetoslav Hristov provides an overview of

the ECA’s work in the area of transportation and highlights the key crosscutting

issues and challenges to be addressed by the EU. No coincidence that he is

authoring this article since Svetoslav was the head of task for the ECA’s 2018

landscape review on transport.

An abundance of audits

Transport and mobility policy aims to provide European citizens and businesses with secure,

sustainable and competitive transport networks and services and mainly covers five key modes

of transport: rail, road, air, maritime and inland waterways.

As part of its wide-ranging audit activities, the ECA has directed considerable audit efforts

towards the field of transport and mobility. Since 2010, it has published 14 special reports and a

landscape review, covering all the five main modes of transport. The selection of audit topics is

based on a thorough analysis of the policy area, associated risks, materiality, past audit coverage,

stakeholder interest, timing and the possible impact of our work. But the main question is always

if the EU has delivered on its promises.

Our audits on rail, roads, air and water transport

Our audits in the field of transport are usually focussed on one of the individual transport modes.

For some reports, our auditors looked at cross-cutting topics, or assessed subjects such as

passenger rights. The graphs below shows which audits have been conducted per subject. It is

followed by an overview of the most important challenges.

For

rail

the ECA reports focused on high-speed rail lines, European rail traffic management

systems, rail freight, and the performance of Trans-European rail axes.

Special report 19/2018: A European high-speed rail network:

not a reality but an ineffective patchwork

Click here for our report

Special report 13/2017: A single European rail traffic management

system: will the political choice ever become reality?

Click here for our report

Source: Pixabay

EUU, Alm.del - 2018-19 (1. samling) - Bilag 471: Rapport fra Den Europæiske Revisionsret januar 2019

Taking a broader view of transportation and the key challenges to be addressed: an

auditor’s landscape perspective

Special report 08/2016: Rail freight transport in the EU: still not on the

right track

Click here for our report

Special report 8/2010: Improving transport performance on Trans-

European rail axes: Have EU rail infrastructure investments been

effective?

Click here for our report

In its audits on

road

the ECA examined the cost-effectiveness of EU funds spent on roads and

road projects implemented through public private partnerships, while an ongoing audit is

focusing on the key road network connecting European regions.

Special report 9/2018: Public Private Partnerships in the EU:

Widespread shortcomings and limited benefits

Click here for our report

Special report 5/2013: Are EU Cohesion Policy funds well spent

on roads?

Click here for our report

For

air

transportation issues, the ECA turned its attention to airport infrastructures and the

Single European Sky. In addition, an ongoing audit is focusing on SESAR, the technological

pillar for air traffic management.

Special report 18/2017: Single European Sky: a changed culture but

not a single sky

Click here for our report

Special report 21/2014: EU-funded airport infrastructures: poor value

for money

Click here for our report

Regarding

water

transport, the ECA looked into maritime transport and seaports, as well as on

inland waterway transport.

Special report 23/2016: Maritime transport in the EU: in troubled

waters — much ineffective and unsustainable investment

Click here for our report

Special report 4/2012: "Using Structural and Cohesion Funds to co-

finance transport infrastructures in seaports: an effective investment?

Click here for our report

Special report 1/2015: Inland Waterway Transport in Europe: No

significant improvements in modal share and navigability conditions

since 2001

Click here for our report

In addition to the five key modes of transport, the ECA covered topics closely related

to transportation, such as

passenger rights, urban transport

and

multimodality.

It is

currently assessing the management of EU programmes by the Innovation and Networks

Executive Agency, and the planning and cost efficiency of EU cross-border transport flagship

infrastructure. Moreover, it is currently planning an audit on multi-modal freight transport.

EUU, Alm.del - 2018-19 (1. samling) - Bilag 471: Rapport fra Den Europæiske Revisionsret januar 2019

Taking a broader view of transportation and the key challenges to be addressed: an

auditor’s landscape perspective

Special report 30/2018: EU passenger rights are

comprehensive but passengers still need to fight for them

Click here for our report

Special report 1/2014: Effectiveness of EU-supported public

urban transport projects

Click here for our report

Special report 3/2013: Have the Marco Polo programmes been

effective in shifting traffic off the road?

Click here for our report

Landscape review

Last year, we consolidated the key crosscutting issues and challenges identified in previous

audits in a

landscape review.

Towards a successful transport sector in the EU: challenges to

be addressed

Click here for our report

In this report, we concluded that progress has been made over the past years, and

identified

six key challenges

(see

Box 1)

the EU still needs to address.

Box 1 - Six key challenges the EU needs to address in the transport sector

Match relevant and achievable transport objectives and priorities with available

resources

The long-term plan for building the remaining infrastructure, in particular for the

TEN-T core network, needs to be reinforced, with precise milestones that are regularly

monitored, reliable overall cost estimates matched by available financial resources,

and a particular focus on cross-border sections. This would increase the likelihood of

achieving the transport policy objectives on time and within budget.

Establish effective enforcement tools at EU level to ensure Member States’

infrastructure decisions are aligned with EU priorities more closely, paying

particular attention to cross-border sections

- Appropriate enforcement tools are needed so that the obligations imposed by the

TEN-T Regulation can be met more swiftly, allowing the completion of key strategic

infrastructure and providing for remedial action if priority projects do not begin on

schedule or are subsequently delayed, or if coordination problems on cross-border

sections seem likely to prevent infrastructure from entering into service as planned;

- All administrative and regulatory barriers to interoperability should be removed as a

matter of priority.

Focus EU funding on priorities with the highest EU added value

- Better coordinating and targeting of EU funding, in both shared and direct

management, to reflect the EU’s transport policy priorities could help to maximise the

effectiveness of investments and ensure a more coherent and strategic approach to

developing the transport network.

- EU support should be prioritised for projects that are run in response to clearly

established and properly assessed needs, are based on careful planning and offer

demonstrable EU added value for the network (e.g. resolving major bottlenecks and

missing links and establishing cross-border connections).

EUU, Alm.del - 2018-19 (1. samling) - Bilag 471: Rapport fra Den Europæiske Revisionsret januar 2019

Taking a broader view of transportation and the key challenges to be addressed: an

auditor’s landscape perspective

Improve the planning, implementation and monitoring of EU-funded projects

- Planning could be enhanced by conducting a thorough needs analysis and using

realistic traffic forecasts and reliable parameters to assess project costs and benefits.

- Rules for implementing infrastructure projects, particularly cross-border, should be

simplified as a matter of priority so as to remove all administrative and regulatory

barriers. Doing so could help to reduce inefficiencies, shorten delays and keep cost

increases under control.

- Regular monitoring of costs and benefits during project implementation is key to

ensuring cost-efficient investments. Monitoring focused on results and impacts as

well as outputs could provide a clearer picture of the extent to which EU-funded

projects are delivering sustainable results and impacts and contributing to the EU’s

transport objectives.

Ensure that infrastructure is adequately maintained and sustainable

Stakeholders should pay attention not only to investments in new infrastructure, but

also to ensuring the maintenance and renewal of existing infrastructure, which is

currently unsatisfactory.

Enhance efforts to shift more goods off roads

Stakeholders should pursue the shift of freight from roads to other transport modes

by strengthening intermodal competition and by setting out principles requiring the

external costs of all transport modes to be adequately considered, and advocating

their implementation.

The privileged role of being an EU auditor … and what we want to achieve with our

recommendations

Our work makes us see many infrastructure projects around the EU and from all different

transport modes. We also look at whether regulation is fit for purpose and how EU and national

transport strategies are implemented. This gives us a very privileged perspective from where

we may see things from a different angle: as the EU’s external auditor, we are an external and

independent observer, and yet we are not distant since we go to audit these projects in the

Member States and speak to the people implementing them.

When we make a recommendation, this is always meant to contribute to ‘better legislation,’

helping the Commission and the Member States to manage EU transport policy and spending

better. And last but not least, we also have a role to play in informing the public about how

public money is being used in a key area which affects the daily life of all of us.

EUU, Alm.del - 2018-19 (1. samling) - Bilag 471: Rapport fra Den Europæiske Revisionsret januar 2019

Transport and climate: still a long journey

By Catherine Hayes and Olivier Prigent, Private Office of Phil Wynn Owen, ECA Member

Luxembourg city

Decreasing greenhouse gas emissions from transport is a challenge. Unlike in other

sectors, emissions from transport sector have increased the past three decades.

The main ways to reduce emissions from transport include using cleaner modes of

transport, switching to biofuels, electricity or hydrogen or…less transport. To fight

climate change, 195 states have committed to the Paris Agreement and the EU has set

its own targets.. Olivier Prigent was the head of task for the ECA landscape review on

EU action on energy and Climate Change, published in September 2017 and currently

works as attaché in the Private Office of Phil Wynn Owen, ECA Member, together with

Catherine Hayes, who works as trainee. They take a closer look on the role transport

plays in reaching EU climate targets.

Transport and climate change

In 2015, 195 states responsible for 99.75 % of global greenhouse gas emissions signed the Paris

Agreement. They committed to keeping the rise in global average temperature this century to

‘well below’ 2°C above pre-industrial levels, aiming to limit it to 1.5°C. To do so, they agreed to

rapidly reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, and to achieve a balance between the amount of

greenhouse gases they emitted into and removed from the atmosphere in the second half of this

century. The EU has set itself various targets and objectives to reduce its emissions (see

Figure 1).

Figure 1 - Greenhouse gas emission trends and targets in the EU, 1990-2050

6 000

5 000

-20%

Million tonne of

-equivalent

4 000

3 000

2 000

-22%

-40%

-80%

1 000

-95%

1990

1995

2000

2005

2010

2015

2020

2025

2030

2035

2040

2045

Year

2050

Historic greenhouse gas emissions

2020 target (-20% vs 1990)

2030 target (-40% vs 1990)

2050 objective (-80% vs 1990)

2050 objective (-95% vs 1990)

Source:

Trends and projections in Europe 2018,

EEA, 2018

Source: Nicolas Toulas

EUU, Alm.del - 2018-19 (1. samling) - Bilag 471: Rapport fra Den Europæiske Revisionsret januar 2019

Transport and climate: still a long journey

To achieve these targets, all sectors of the economy will have to contribute. Emissions from

other sectors have generally fallen since 1990, but the transport sector has bucked the trend. In

2016, transport accounted for 27 % of the EU’s greenhouse gas emissions. Following a decrease

between 2007 and 2013, emissions rose again between 2014 and 2016 due to the economic

recovery (see

Figure 2).

Figure 2 – Trend in EU greenhouse gas emissions, by sector, 1990-2016

150

140

130

120

1990 = 100

110

100

1990 1992 1994 1996

Energy supply

Buildings

Industry

1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014 2016

Agriculture

Transport (including international aviation and shipping)

Waste

Source: European Environment Agency,

EEA greenhouse gas – data viewer,

2018; ECA analysis

Road transport

Around three-quarters of transport emissions come from road transport, especially from cars.

Both water and rail transport emit significantly less greenhouse gases per passenger or per tonne

of freight than road transport. Shifting passengers and freight from the roads to water and rail

transport could reduce emissions. However, several EU Supreme Audit Institutions (SAIs) and the

ECA have found that this necessary change in transport modes is not being achieved.

The use of renewable fuels could also reduce road transport emissions. Biofuels - produced from

biomass or from domestic or industrial waste - account for about 70 % of renewable energy used

in transport. The consumption of biofuels in transport has been growing steadily, but also slowly.

Concerns around land-use change for biofuels cultivation has limited their development. Several

EU SAIs have found that national biofuel targets had been missed.

Other renewable fuels for transport include electricity - provided that it is produced from

renewable sources -, hydrogen and synthetic fuels made of hydrogen and carbon dioxide (CO2).

The EU also encourages the use of other forms of low-emission alternative fuels, such as liquefied

petroleum gas (LPG). The expansion of the fleet of vehicles using these fuels is constrained by a

lack of refuelling infrastructure, as well as technical limitations, such as the vehicles’ range, weight

and cost. Two changes are necessary for these vehicles to become widespread: further research

and innovation in energy storage technologies, and the removal of the main market barriers

to their use. The EU has also set common standards for alternative-fuels infrastructure, such as

recharging and refuelling stations, and requires Member States to develop an infrastructure

policy.

Air and maritime transport

Aviation accounted for 3.8 % of the EU’s greenhouse gas emissions in 2016, but by 2020, global

international aviation emissions are projected to be around 70 % higher than in 2005. According

to the European Commission, by 2050, they could increase again by up to seven times.

EUU, Alm.del - 2018-19 (1. samling) - Bilag 471: Rapport fra Den Europæiske Revisionsret januar 2019

Transport and climate: still a long journey

Since 2012, emissions from flights within the European Economic Area (EEA, which consist of

the EU, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway)) have been covered by the EU Emissions Trading

System. The EU Emissions Trading System – the EU ETS – allows companies to trade allowances

of greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, large energy-intensive industrial installations,

and, since 2012, aviation emissions from intra-EEA flights. These sectors account for about 45%

of the EU greenhouse gas emissions. Flights between EEA and non-EEA countries are covered

by an agreement reached under the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) in October

2016, according to which large airline companies must compensate for part of their emissions

by acquiring international carbon credits. Participation in this scheme will become mandatory in

2027. The ICAO has also introduced a standard to certify CO

emissions for aircraft.

Maritime and inland waterways transport accounted for around 4 % of the EU’s greenhouse

gas emissions in 2016. Most of these emissions come from international shipping, i.e. shipping

between EU and non-EU ports. According to the

Third IMO Greenhouse Gas Study 2014

of the

International Maritime Organisation, international maritime transport is projected to increase by

up to 250 % between 2012 and 2050. These emissions are not accounted for in the EU’s reduction

targets and are not currently internationally regulated.

While the fuel consumption of ships is known, reporting and verification processes are still

missing. To tackle this problem, the EU has introduced a system for the monitoring, reporting

and verification of greenhouse gases emitted by ships. The system provides scope to introduce

potential emission reduction measures at a later point. In parallel, the EU has also worked

together with the International Maritime Organization (IMO), which reached a global agreement

on a monitoring, reporting and verifying scheme for shipping greenhouse gases in 2016. In April

2018, the IMO agreed to an objective of reducing the emissions of international shipping by 50 %

between 2008 and 2050 – less than the 70 % to 100 % reduction objective supported by the EU.

Upcoming challenges for the transport sector

The transport sector faces three main challenges related to climate change mitigation:

•

The energy transition:

the transport sector will have to undergo changes in energy use,

switching to less carbon-intensive transport modes and using biofuels and alternative fuels,

such as electricity;

Research and innovation:

achieving significant emissions reductions in transport will

require the development of alternative fuels and better energy storage technologies; and

Involving EU citizens:

the integration of citizens in the energy transition is essential, both

for understanding, endorsing and paying for necessary transitions to sustainable transport,

and also to support active participation. Legislation will need to be conducive to the

development of sustainable transport and acceptable to EU citizens.

•

By examining how we progress in meeting our ambitious objectives in reducing emissions, the

ECA – as the EU’s independent external auditor – can make its contribution to this common effort.

EUU, Alm.del - 2018-19 (1. samling) - Bilag 471: Rapport fra Den Europæiske Revisionsret januar 2019

EU passenger rights – auditing a policy

that really matters to citizens

By Erki Must, Investment for Cohesion, Growth and Inclusion Directorate

Probably everybody travelling in Europe and beyond has experienced it at

some point. For reasons beyond your control, you experienced significant

delays, your luggage got lost, or the assistance promised was not delivered.

What are your rights then? And how consistent can they be put into practice

when travelling by air, rail, bus or boat? The ECA looked at this aspect of

transport and mobility from the perspective of the citizen using public

transport in its special report 30/2018. Erki Must was the head of task for this

very special audit, dealing with an EU policy that directly matters to citizens.

What is his take of the audit and why does it stand out compared with some

other ECA audits done on transport and mobility issues.

EU passenger rights – a very special audit

I am honoured and happy with the fact that I had the experience to be the task leader of the ECA

performance audit on passenger rights. This task was in several ways a performance audit out of

the ordinary. We deliberately decided to use an innovative approach and also took care that our

work resulted in a straightforward and reader-friendly report (special report 30/2018 published

in November 2018). All of this would not have been possible without a highly motivated and

dedicated team.

My three favourite findings

Our audit on passenger rights revealed several interesting findings. I will not list all them, as this

may take away your appetite for reading the report itself, but I want to focus on those three that

I am the most passionate about:

•

The EU passenger rights have become all about

compensations:

There are altogether 10

rights that we as passengers enjoy. They span from the right to information to the right for

snacks and accommodation in case our travel is disrupted. These rights are basically similar

for air, rail, bus and waterborne travel. Sounds good, doesn’t it? Well, in fact, some 95% of

the attention in this field is focussed on air passenger rights, more precisely on the issue of

compensations payable due to long delays or cancellations. This topic has all but paralysed

the passenger rights framework;

Source: European Parliament

EUU, Alm.del - 2018-19 (1. samling) - Bilag 471: Rapport fra Den Europæiske Revisionsret januar 2019

EU passenger rights – auditing a policy that really matters to citizens

•

The system of

handling passenger claims

lacks transparency: Our survey of more than 10 000

people revealed that the right for compensation is the second most highly valued of the 10

passenger rights. Therefore, it was really surprising to find that no information whatsoever is

available on this for passengers: there are for example no statistics available on the number of

claims made by passengers or which departures are deemed to be subject for compensations.

Nothing prevents an airline from paying compensation to one passenger with a well-written

request and ignoring another passenger affected by the same travel disruption. No wonder

this situation has created a brand new industry of passenger rights case handlers;

There are in reality more than

100 different systems of passenger rights in the EU-28.

There are four EU regulations setting the passenger rights in four transport modes. Well, not

one but four. Still bearable, although from a passenger perspective it would be beneficial if

these rights were broadly similar and, as far as possible, aligned on each other. Moreover, the

way these rights are implemented depend to a large extent on the arrangements set out by

each Member State. In some cases, like bus or rail travel, within one country even regional

authorities might come into play. Overall, we have more than 100 individual implementation

arrangements all over Europe. This is creating unnecessary administrative complexity for

both passengers and carriers.

•

All these findings were a result of significant research and fact-finding on the ground. We

visited 10 Member States, had altogether 80 meetings with the national authorities, carriers,

case handlers and consumer protection officers. The spirit of cooperation from our partners

was amazing – everyone really wanted to share their view with the hope that something could

eventually change in the current set-up.

A typical policy audit: it’s all about regulation

We had access to these people despite the fact that the EU has spent less than 1 million euro on

passenger rights in the current MFF. The socio-economic impact of this policy does not come

from spending, but from regulation. This fact makes this audit a typical

policy audit.

An approach

which is not yet very common in our work.

But we also saw the limits of our audit in terms of triggering actual change on the ground. In the

end there are many stakeholders involved and many interests at stake, and the conclusions and

recommendations in our reports, despite being well grounded, are just some among many.

Delivering criticism but also offering solutions

Another aspect that makes this audit report stands out from others are the recommendations.

We went much further from the more commonly used recommendation ‘the Commission should

analyse and find best practices level’ and aimed at proposing concrete solutions that would

break the current impasse of the passenger rights legal framework. I would like to highlight three

proposals in the report that would benefit everyone:

•

There should be a

specific definition for the carriers’ obligation to provide assistance and

care.

The current passenger rights system sets no minimum conditions to the amount of care

you are entitled to in a case of travel disruption. Getting a 3-euro food coupon in a case of 6

hours delay that can only be used in one cafeteria in the whole airport, where a coffee costs 5

euro is not adequate. The report proposes setting a 40 euro minimum threshold for air travel

and 20 euro for other modes of transport so that people would be looked after when the pain

is the most acute;

In the current system compensations are only paid at a request of each and every passenger.

At the same time, the system of claims handling is non-transparent both at the carrier

side and also when government bodies step in to mediate. The audit proposes a

48 hour

deadline for the carriers to self-declare the causes of the delay and cancellation,

thus

making it known to all parties involved. These declarations could become the subjects of

an assessment by the consumer protection authorities. And, if the carriers declare that the

reason for delay was indeed under their control, we invited them to execute

automatic

payments of compensation

for the affected passengers. This would significantly reduce the

costs of case handling, court cases and the overall trouble for all parties;

The amounts for the compensation to be paid currently vary between the mode of transport.

In rail, bus and water transport, they are related to the cost of a ticket while in the air travel

specific amounts were laid into the regulation. The regulation comes from 2004 and according

to our calculations by now some 25% of the value of these compensation have inflated away.

•

EUU, Alm.del - 2018-19 (1. samling) - Bilag 471: Rapport fra Den Europæiske Revisionsret januar 2019

EU passenger rights – auditing a policy that really matters to citizens

We propose introducing a system that would ensure that the

purchasing value of the

compensations

would remain stable over the years.

In short, these changes would make the system of passenger rights more transparent, less

bureaucratic and fairer for all parties involved: passengers, carriers and public sector authorities.

But also much more expansive. And this is probably why nothing of this kind will happen soon.

Not only recommendations but also tips for travellers…

Based on the contacts the ECA auditors had with carriers, public authorities and ordinary passengers,

they put together 10 tips to make anyone’s travel experience better if their journey is disrupted:

Personalise your travel as much as possible – when purchasing a ticket, identify yourself to the

carrier, e.g. provide your contact details. Being informed about disruptions only works when

carriers have your contact details. Also, if you need claim for compensation, a personalised ticket

is the best way of demonstrating that you were actually on board and affected by disruption.

Take a photo of your luggage – when your journey involves checking in luggage, it is a good idea

to have a photo of your suitcase and its contents. This will save time when filing a claim and will

provide some proof of the value of lost items.

3. Don’t arrive late at the check-in desk – it is important to remember that passenger rights only

apply if you check in on time. If you miss your departure because the check-in desk was already

closed when you arrived, you are not eligible for assistance.

Request information at the points of departure – you have a right to be updated if your departure

is delayed, or if anything else goes wrong with your journey. If the carrier’s representative is

not present or does not provide meaningful information, make a note of it and include this

observation in the claim you make to the carrier.

Always request assistance – if you experience a long delay or cancellation on any mode of

transport, you have a right to assistance. This means access to water and a snack or a meal. If

the carrier’s representatives do not provide such amenities on their own initiative, request them.

If you are refused, make a note of it and include this observation in the claim you make to the

carrier.

Keep all receipts – if assistance is not provided at the point of departure (airport, bus or train

station, harbour) or you are departing from a remote location (a bus stop) you can ask the carrier

to compensate your additional costs. Carriers usually request proof of payment for drinks and

snacks, and may refuse if the number of items is not in line with the length of delay, or if the costs

are unreasonably high. Similar principles apply if you have to find your own accommodation to

wait for another departure the following day.

Request proof of delay or cancellation – in all four modes of transport, passengers are entitled

to compensation for long delays and cancellations. Although the rate of compensation and the

minimum waiting times are different between the modes, the obligation to prove that you were

affected is the same for all. If your ticket did not have your name on it, obtain proof at the station

or on board that you were affected by the specific delay or cancellation.

Do not make your own arrangements without hearing first a proposal from the carrier – with

travel disruption you usually want to continue travelling immediately using another carrier or

by another means of transport. We recommend not to act rashly: buying a new ticket, without

receiving alternative options proposed by the carrier, is tantamount to unilaterally cancelling

your contract of carriage. This ends any obligation of the original carrier to offer you assistance

or compensation.

Request for compensation – if you can demonstrate that you have been affected by a delayed or

cancelled departure, and that the duration of the delay was above the threshold set out in the

regulation, submit a compensation request to the carrier. Always refer to the specific departure

and the Regulation applicable. If you do not receive a reply from the carrier or you are not

satisfied with it, refer the case to the National Enforcement Body of the country of departure. The

other organisations that can help you are Alternative Dispute Bodies (ADRs) and claim agencies.

Bear in mind that you may be charged for these services.

10. Request compensation for additional expenditure – in some cases your loss due to a delay

or cancellation is much greater than the amount due to you under EU passenger-rights

compensation rules. In such cases, you can make a claim to the carriers pursuant to international

conventions. You should be prepared to demonstrate the exact amount of your losses, and the

extra expenditure incurred due to the travel disruption.

EUU, Alm.del - 2018-19 (1. samling) - Bilag 471: Rapport fra Den Europæiske Revisionsret januar 2019

EU passenger rights – auditing a policy that really matters to citizens

Report published…and now what?

As standard practice, at the ECA, we publish our audit reports together with a press release. In

some cases, we also organise a press briefing or specific events where the report is presented to

stakeholders. We also present our reports at the European Parliament, in its Budgetary Control

Committee (CONT) and more and more often at a committee specialised on the topic. Normally

there is also a presentation at the Council working group on the issue.

Our special report on passenger rights has gone through all these steps. We attracted quite

some media coverage, presented the report at the European Parliament and had an interesting

meeting at the Council. The report was praised for its quality and we were thanked for the

interesting recommendations. But so far there seems to be no intention to modernise the EU

passenger rights legal framework.

When we are aiming for

policy audits

the issue of recommendations is very important to clarify.

Usually, all parties involved agree with our analysis of the situation. Our reports are recognised as

a valuable source of information for the Commission and other auditees, if applicable, because

we are seen to be independent and impartial. But this does not mean that someone would act

upon our reports. I have sometimes felt in Brussels like a brave crusader returning from long trips

to foreign lands, packed with information about how life is playing out over there.

In the case of an audit of a specific spending area, our recommendations most often focus on

the systems, the extent to which EU and national rules have been complied with and specific

choices made by those managing EU funds. Implementing these recommendations helps to

avoid making similar mistakes again or to recoup funds wrongly spent. In a case of policy audits,

we propose changes to the rules themselves and such recommendations are actually subject to

a completely different decision making process, and a more long-term political horizon. And this

is where our mandate ends.

More targeted communication efforts may be required to rally public support behind our

suggestions

Policy audits, especially on topics that matter to people and could potentially improve the way

the EU influences our everyday lives, are here to stay. Common sense tells us that topics such

as EU passenger rights are important are in need for an independent external examination.

And who would be better positioned than the ECA to do this? This idea of the ECA also being

a ‘regulatory watchdog’ - as recently stated in the ‘Politico’ - underlies the ECA strategy for the

2018-2020 period.

But how to get more punch from our recommendations? As external auditors, we need to

understand that if we want our policy audits to make a difference, we need to get under the skin

of the decision makers. And we probably need to advocate more convincingly and clearly that

decision-makers need to take action if they really want to address the shortcomings that we have

pointed at in our reports. This may also require more targeted communication efforts than we

currently deploy, rallying public opinion behind our suggestions for improving EU policies. Only

then will our policy audits have the impact they deserve.

EUU, Alm.del - 2018-19 (1. samling) - Bilag 471: Rapport fra Den Europæiske Revisionsret januar 2019

Being ECA’s Mr Transport

Interview with Luc T’Joen,

Senior Administrator in the ECA

By Derek Meijers and Gaston Moonen

Luc T’Joen, Senior Administrator in the Investment for Cohesion, Growth and Inclusion Directorate,

regarding the audits he has done in the Transport and Mobility area

For many years, Luc T’Joen has been the ECA’s main expert in the field of

Transport and Mobility. Leading audits covering all transport modes has

given him a substantiated view on the topic. An interview about an auditor’s

perspective on different aspects of the EU’s transportation policy and the

impact audit reports can have in addressing shortcomings and making sure

that lessons are learnt.

Setting up shop

After a 20-year career at the European Commission, Luc T’Joen

... make a positive

joined the ECA at the start of 2008. He quickly got involved in

contribution to

auditing trans-European transport and mobility networks and the

something that

vast amounts of structural funding – well over €80 billion in the

impacts the lives of all

period 2007-2013. Luc: ‘Transport is a fascinating policy area to

EU citizens. Every day!’

work in as an auditor. Not least because transport infrastructure

requires a long-term vision, planning, and enormous investments.’ His main motivation to audit

transport? ‘The opportunity to make a positive contribution to something that impacts the lives

of all EU citizens. Every day!’

“

Luc is one of the pioneers of modern transport audits at the ECA and took a leading role in

developing the necessary expertise. Before doing his first audit on the Marco Polo programme he

recalls: ‘Our team managed to build up our knowledge in just a couple of months. In that period,

we interviewed almost every expert we could find, for example from the different directorates-

general of the Commission, to gain an insight into the sector.’ He continues: ‘The Commission

was very helpful and this research provided us with a deep understanding of the area, the money

flows, and the key risks and challenges.’

EUU, Alm.del - 2018-19 (1. samling) - Bilag 471: Rapport fra Den Europæiske Revisionsret januar 2019

Interview with Luc T’Joen, Senior Administrator in the ECA

Impactful work

Since those days, Luc has contributed to producing several

... we usually find very

audit reports on transportation issues, covering all transport

similar issues, such

modes (road, rail, waterways, air) with topics ranging from

as a lack of a needs

urban transport, inland waterways, rail freight and modal

assessment or insufficient

shift to high-speed rail. When asked about what these audits

supervisory powers on the

and their impact have in common, Luc explains that the

Commission side.

starting point is always to take a constructive approach. Luc:

‘Although the transportation modes may differ from one audit to another, we usually find very

similar issues, such as a lack of a needs assessment or insufficient supervisory powers on the

Commission side. So after a while you know what to look for.’

“

In his view, an audit is not only useful to uncover problems or to point out shortcomings, but it

should also serve as a reliable source of information for decision makers. Luc: ‘In the end, our work

should help the EU to do a better job and to deliver on its promises – in this case improving the

European transportation network. So we want the decision makers to engage with our findings

and recommendations. To achieve that, we have to be as clear as possible.’ He explains: ‘Take for

example our report on high-speed rail. There we included two options for the development of

the railway line between Venice and Trieste, by which we clearly showed that it would be much

cheaper to upgrade the conventional line instead of building a new high-speed line. Now that is

adding value!’

The regional aspect

But there are also other success stories Luc recalls. Such as, for

... there will always be

example, the obligation for airports to conduct a catchment-

a tension between the

area-analysis (to determine the area from which people

regional and the cross-

would actually use the airport’s services), and to coordinate

regional interests...

with neighbouring regional airports as a requirement to get

EU co-funding. Luc: ‘A recurrent factor is the predominance of

a regional perspective when taking funding decisions. A good deal of the EU money is invested

through regional funds, of which the distribution is decided by the regions themselves, while

the European Commission only has limited powers to intervene.’ He adds: ‘Although the current

policy does make additional efforts to address this, there will always be a tension between the

regional and the cross-regional interests in shared management, or between cohesion and

transport policy in particular.’

“

Luc quickly underlines that a similar difference in view can also be noted between the

Commission’s directorates-general, ‘They have very different perspectives. Transport people

always focus on what makes sense for transport and mobility and the broader network, while

cohesion people tend to see transport investments mainly as a means of regional development.’

Luc: ‘But having said that, there have been some positive changes in recent years. For example

the requirement to include a long-term strategic view or cross-border elements in project plans

for infrastructural investments.’ Laughing: ‘I think that is because of our audits!’

For Luc, everything revolves around EU added value. Where

Whether we talk about rail

the Member States and regions – obviously – consider

freight, inland waterway

their national or regional interests first, the Commission

connections, or high-

should ensure that the focus is on the broader, cross-border

speed rail, all too often the

picture. Luc: ‘Interestingly, border crossings remain a key

chain breaks at a border.

problem. Whether we talk about rail freight, inland waterway

connections, or high-speed rail, all too often the chain breaks at a border.’ He then quickly adds

there is obviously a link between the ambition to provide EU added value in transport and the

need to develop regional structures to boost local economies. ‘The trouble is that there is not

always a common understanding of what this EU added value should look like from the point of

view of the regions.’

“

Big shrewd business

Another challenge of planning transport investments while wearing regional blinkers is, as Luc

explains, that companies eagerly take advantage of the competitive disadvantage that regions

intentionally or unintentionally create for them.

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Interview with Luc T’Joen, Senior Administrator in the ECA

He mentions a case where a lot of money was invested in

... a big budget airline[...]

the Spanish airports of Vigo, A Coruña and Santiago de

played off the airports

Compostela, which are all located very close to each other.

against each other and

Luc: ‘But on other side of the border, still very close but

negotiated with all of

Portugal, you also have the airport of Porto. So

them at the same time

it should not have come as a surprise that a big budget airline

to get the best deal. [...]

spotted an opportunity to trade off the fact they were one of

leading to very underused

the few companies flying to the region. It then played off the

infrastructures built with

airports against each other and negotiated with all of them at

a lot of EU money!

the same time to get the best deal. To cut a long story short,

everybody was investing in infrastructure, the EU invested in all the Spanish airports but the

company went to Porto, leading to very underused infrastructures built with a lot of EU money!’

“

Luc: ‘Therefore, we need to have a global, long-term strategy

... we cannot have all

to avoid being taken advantage of. And this also needs to

the same facilities in all

be monitored closely, otherwise you are bound to run into

regions. The cake simply is

trouble. This is not just happening with airports - on the

not big enough.’

contrary. If we look at container transhipment using maritime

transport, we see new terminals being built everywhere, but the shipping companies will only

take the best offer. So it is clear that we cannot have all the same facilities in all regions. The cake

simply is not big enough.’ Luc adds that this, again, shows the European Commission does not

have enough punch to prevent such things from happening. ‘If a Member State channels funds

to one port, that port will be competing against a neighbouring port that in turn might also need

additional funding to stay competitive. That just is not efficient and the Member States should

see that as well.’

“

One positive result of the recent ECA audits on air and

... the new Connecting

seaports, Luc explains, is that the Commission decided to

Europe Facility instrument

finance major projects through direct management via the

[...] was a good move

new Connecting Europe Facility instrument (CEF), avoiding

which has helped to

shared management, and will attempt to also link the funding

make the spending more

to results, and not only to outputs. Luc: ‘In my opinion, this

efficient.

was a good move which has helped to make the spending

more efficient. It ensures all projects are subject to a long-term plan and a proper cost-benefit-

analysis, and links the funding to results, rather than output. This is an important step towards

the realisation of the core and comprehensive networks that are part of the EU’s overall strategy.’

“

What’s next?

In the audit business, it is essential to keep looking ahead, and this is even truer for transport and

mobility, an area where the lifecycle of investments spans out over several decades. When asked

which topics he thinks could be interesting to look at in the coming years, Luc sees possibilities

for many audit topics. Luc: ‘Currently, we are looking into urban mobility and transport flagships.

In the meantime, the Commission is further developing the TEN-T core and comprehensive

networks by 2030 and 2050 respectively. So I expect our audits to follow in that direction.

Adding to that, Luc says: ‘Topics I would really like to audit are the effectiveness of investments

for multimodal logistic chains and terminals.’ He continues by saying that the ECA will soon start

auditing more cross-cutting issues, such as transport research, and sustainable and low carbon

transportation.’

Luc emphasizes that the latter is really important: ‘The

how to reduce the carbon

question of how to reduce the carbon footprint of transport

footprint of transport is

is by far the most important nut to crack at the moment. For

by far the most important

years now, we have implemented many projects and invested

nut to crack at the

a lot of money for research and innovation, and things have

moment.

gradually improved. Take for example electric cars, trucks or

exhaust scrubbers for ships. But we still need a solution to stay within the environmental limits

of our planet.’

“

Considering the state of play in Europe, Luc is convinced that cross-sectoral and cross-cutting

audits will be able to make a difference. He explains: ‘To start with cross-sectoral audits. These

EUU, Alm.del - 2018-19 (1. samling) - Bilag 471: Rapport fra Den Europæiske Revisionsret januar 2019

Interview with Luc T’Joen, Senior Administrator in the ECA

are, as I mentioned earlier, necessary to keep an eye on the global picture. Take tourism. This

is an important economic sector where we see many investments that are directly linked with

numerous other sectors, such as transport. As an example, cruise ship quays and marinas are built

using EU money earmarked for transport but in reality, they primarily serve a tourism objective.

Another important area, which is stressed in several ECA reports, is the fact that most investments

aim to create new infrastructure, but that very little money is reserved for maintenance. Luc:

‘Maintenance should absolutely become a priority. Just look at what happened with the Genova

Bridge. That says it all.’ He continues: ‘And this applies to all transportation modes.’

Top priorities and solutions

Luc is very clear when asked what should be the focus of

... in many sectors we are

future transport policies. ‘The top three lessons I learned

missing the long-term

would be first, that in many sectors we are missing the long-

strategic view.

term strategic view. When we did the audit on airports, we

had five Member States and only one had a long-term plan, so a strategic view is number one.’

He adds that these plans must be linked to similar plans in neighbouring regions and, most

importantly, to the Commission’s global “master plan” aimed at maximising EU added value. ‘A

project only makes sense if it fits into the framework of the core and comprehensive networks,

and if it does not cannibalise neighbouring investments.’

“

As the second focus area, Luc points at topics such as the quality of the decision-making, needs

assessments beforehand, cost-benefit-analyses and ex-post evaluation, to learn from errors and

experiences of the past, as well as the sustainability and maintenance of a project over several

decades. ‘All these kinds of elements should be considered before making any decision on future

investments.’

Thirdly, and finally, Luc would call for uniform standards to

... [in cross-border rail

facilitate cross-border transport. Luc: ‘The transportation sector

transport] we still have

currently has to deal with thousands of different standards and

11 000 barriers!

regulations, each of them applicable to only a few elements.’

He gives the example of rail: ‘There we still have 11 000 barriers! Most of them are on the core

network and these are national, technical and administrative barriers, including safety issues.’

“

He illustrates this with the international rail route from Germany, to Italy. ‘If we have a train that

is coming from Germany towards Italy, the German locomotive driver can pass without any

troubles through Austria. However, he has to stop at the Italian border, because the German-

speaking driver has to be replaced by two Italian speaking drivers.’ He continues: ‘Then the train’s

lights will have to be changed because the safety instructions in Italy are different from the ones

in Austria and Germany. This shows how safety is sometimes misused as an argument to limit

competition. And that is something that could easily be addressed by setting EU-wide standards,’

says ECA’s ‘Mr Transport.’

EUU, Alm.del - 2018-19 (1. samling) - Bilag 471: Rapport fra Den Europæiske Revisionsret januar 2019

Up in the sky – auditing Europe’s air traffic

management systems, step by step…

By Afonso Malheiro, Investment for Cohesion, Growth and Inclusion Directorate

Traffic congestion on the road is not very pleasant, and neither is congestion

when travelling by rail. But probably traffic congestion in the air is the worst,

because the safety element kicks in almost immediately: a close encounter

can be catastrophic. Air Traffic Management (ATM) is the result of a quest for

safety and efficiency in a context of growing traffic and limited space. Afonso

Malheiro, head of task for two ECA audits in this area, sheds some light on why

the ECA is examining this specific area of transport and mobility.

A myriad of abbreviations … and regulations

Air traffic management refers to the systems that allow aircraft to go from origin to destination

using the shortest path possible, without delays and remaining at a safe distance from each other.

ACC, ANSP, ATFM, CNS, DUC, FAB, IFR, NSA, SES, SESAR - there is probably no other ECA report

which has used more abbreviations than special report 18/2017:

Single European Sky: a changed

culture but not a single sky.

Similarly, the report features an extensive glossary – which, however,

is still just a very modest attempt to decode the immense amounts of jargon that populate the

world of air traffic management. Both are indicators of the complex and technical nature of this

specific sector of air transport.

Our first audit of the ‘Single European Sky’

Back in 2015, when we first started to look at this wonderful new world (new for us, certainly), the

task seemed daunting. Initial reading material revealed not only the multiple abbreviations but

also a highly complex interconnection between airports, airlines, air navigation service providers

and other stakeholders. As postulated by the ‘butterfly effect,’ a flight delayed because of a

missing passenger, a strike by air traffic controllers or a thunderstorm over an airport can have a

cascade of consequences over the entire network.

In that multi-dimensional matrix of causes and consequences, how then to audit the

performance of the system? Additionally, commercial aviation is extremely safety-oriented, since

the overriding expectation of a fare-paying passenger is a safe landing. Consequently, there is a

myriad of regulations to comb through.

To audit ATM means knowing ATM

Such challenges are not insurmountable. However, asking the right questions requires a

transformation, partly at least, of the typical auditor into an expert in air traffic management.

Source: Pixabay

EUU, Alm.del - 2018-19 (1. samling) - Bilag 471: Rapport fra Den Europæiske Revisionsret januar 2019

Up in the sky – auditing Europe’s air traffic management systems, step by step…

Special report 18/2017: Single European Sky: a changed culture but not a single sky

In this audit, the ECA reviewed selected key components of the Single European Sky (SES)

initiative, the aim of which is to improve the overall performance of Air Traffic Management

(ATM).

We concluded that the initiative addressed a clear need and has led to a greater emphasis

on efficiency in ATM. However, European airspace management remains fragmented and we

have not achieved an SES yet. EU funding for the technological elements of the SES has so far

reached €730 million and is due to grow to €3.8 billion by 2020.

Our auditors visited government departments, air navigation providers and national

supervisors in five Member States, as well as key policy, operational and industrial

stakeholders. They found that the concept of an SES was justified, because European air

traffic management was hindered by national monopolies and fragmentation.

There have been no substantial reductions in navigation charges and ATM-related delays

have started to increase again. The SES’s technological pillar, the SESAR project, has promoted

coordination and is gradually releasing technological improvements, but has fallen behind

its initial schedule and has become significantly more costly than anticipated

The ECA made several recommendations to the European Commission and the Member

States to help improve the effectiveness of the SES. They concern, among other things,

reducing fragmentation, ensuring that national supervisory authorities are fully independent,

reviewing some key performance indicators in the scheme and reinforcing the accountability

of the SESAR Joint Undertaking.

And apart from the usual ingredients – motivation, audit methodology and a reasonable amount

of work – such a transformation requires … time. Herein lies the true challenge of conducting a

performance audit on a technical area: how to ask the right questions, explore the right topics,

go beneath the surface of facts and figures and finally report on relevant conclusions and

recommendations within a reasonable time frame?

Managing the scope

From the beginning, when we started looking at how to audit the ‘Single European Sky,’ we

considered that it would not be feasible to cover all the different policy components, even if

several of them seemed closely intertwined. We therefore made a deliberate choice to focus the

audit scope on the regulatory elements deemed most relevant and mature – the regulations on

performance and charges, the functional airspace blocks. In addition, we decided to include, at

least in part, the technological component of the policy, the SESAR project (Single European Sky

Air Traffic Management Research), which is co-funded by the EU.

However, in this first audit, we made a split: we looked at the definition and development phases

of SESAR (i.e. the master plan for modernisation and the R&D effort needed to accomplish it) but

we excluded the actual deployment of such new technologies in a real operational environment.

We had two good reasons for this: firstly, at that time – end of 2015 and early 2016 - deployment

was only just starting and thus we would not have had much to say. Secondly, the audit scope

was much more focused – and manageable. Any other option would have prolonged the audit,

endangering its timely conclusion.

One particular feature of the aviation industry is that to operate an airline you need to be very

competitive and tough. Just recall the famous quote attributed to Richard Branson, founder of the

Virgin Group: “If you want to be a millionaire, start with a billion and launch a new airline”. In such

a competitive environment, every euro and every minute counts. An aircraft on the ground does

not generate any revenue. Having it orbit around a congested airport is worse – economically as

well as environmentally. One result of the high costs of air traffic congestion is that researchers

and consultants have been studying air traffic management for decades. There is therefore plenty

of material: studies, reports, academic papers, even books on ATM performance going back to

the 1980s . This reading material provided substantial help in identifying the problems, possible

causes, performance indictors and a wide range of auditable aspects of EU intervention in this

area. Without the help and support of the ECA librarians, this research would have been difficult.

EUU, Alm.del - 2018-19 (1. samling) - Bilag 471: Rapport fra Den Europæiske Revisionsret januar 2019

Up in the sky – auditing Europe’s air traffic management systems, step by step…

Benchmarking overseas

The need to accommodate ever more traffic in a constant volume of airspace is not a specifically

European problem. For this audit, we therefore also wanted to look beyond Europe. The United

States and Canada, for example, face similar challenges. How do they handle them? In the United

States, air traffic management is carried out directly by the government and funded by taxes. In

Canada, different stakeholders have come together to form a company dedicated to air traffic

management, which is financed through fees applied to airlines using Canadian airspace. Talking

to key staff from these North American organisations helped us in our search for best practices

that could potentially also be used in the European context.

Closing the cycle: auditing the deployment of SESAR

In 2019, the same audit team is closing the cycle on SESAR by looking at the component that we

had excluded back in 2015: the deployment of new operational concepts and technologies in the

day-to-day operational environment. As we assess the EU’s intervention in this modernisation

effort, we are in fact doing a consecutive performance audit on different components of the same

EU policy. But we do so with the comfort of now being, from the start, much more familiar with all

the abbreviations, the causes and the consequences. I cannot stress enough how valuable I find

this approach - a cycle of audits by a dedicated team - in actually delivering a relevant and timely

contribution to assessing the impact of EU policies and programmes, and to the sound financial

management of the EU budget. Hopefully, this will also contribute to less congestion and even

more safety in Air Traffic Management in the years to come.

EUU, Alm.del - 2018-19 (1. samling) - Bilag 471: Rapport fra Den Europæiske Revisionsret januar 2019

Transport and climate:

the drive for clean air

By Colm Friel, Sustainable Use of Natural Resources Directorate

Climate change is often associated with an incremental process that has long

term effects. Colm Friel, principal manager at the ECA, has been involved in

several ECA climate change audits. In this article, he recalls that transport is

a major source of air pollution and thus also has consequences, even lethal

sometimes, for the health of EU citizens…in the future, but also right now.

Emissions and health

It is not just the Americans who like cars. We in Europe like them too. There are about 250 million

of them on the road in the EU. And in Europe, unlike the USA, we like to drive diesel cars: until

recently, more than half of new cars sold in the EU were diesel.

Diesel cars are more fuel efficient, can last longer, and emit less nasty CO2 than petrol cars. So for

years we thought that we were saving both our money and the planet by choosing diesel over

petrol. But it turns out, it is not so simple.

Cars do not just emit CO2, they also emit other stuff which is considerably nastier - like nitrous

oxides and particulate matter. And while CO2 is a greenhouse gas which is bad for climate

change, which may be detrimental for your future health - the other stuff pollutes the air, and

is certainly bad for your health now, contributing to heart diseases and strokes. The problem is:

diesel cars emit much more of these air pollutants than petrol cars.

Our recent special

report 23/2018

Air pollution: our health still insufficiently protected

states that

around 400 000 people in the EU die prematurely each year due to air pollution. In fact, air

pollution is the biggest environmental risk to public health in the EU. Most urban dwellers are

exposed to levels of air pollution considered as dangerous by the WHO. And the Commission

estimated this is costing hundreds of billions of euros per year. Despite EU policies for clean air

which have been around for a long time - and which have indeed been instrumental in reducing

emissions - air pollution is still far too high in many of our urban areas.

Transport and emissions

Figure 1

below shows transport is the main source of nitrous oxide emissions (NOx) in the EU,

and a significant source of particulate matter emissions. Diesel engines account for a large part

of this.

EUU, Alm.del - 2018-19 (1. samling) - Bilag 471: Rapport fra Den Europæiske Revisionsret januar 2019

Transport and climate: the drive for clean air

Figure 1 - Sources of air pollutants in the EU1

Thanks to actions taken by the EU, emissions (of nitrous oxides) are now less than half what

they were 20 years ago. This is clearly a success of the EU’s environmental policy. However, at

the same time, most Member States still do not comply with the limit values (maximum average

exposure of 40 micro grams per cubic metre) set for NO2 in the Ambient Air Quality Directive to

protect human health (see

Figure 2).

The European Environment Agency recently identified that

exposure to NO2 is causing 75 000 premature deaths per year in the EU

Figure 2 - NO2 concentrations in 2015

Source

https://www.eea.

europa.eu/data-and-maps/

figures/annual-mean-no2-

concentrations-in

1. Source: EEA, ‘Air quality in Europe – 2017 report,’ p. 22

Note: emission of air pollutants are quantified in terms of NOX and SOX while air pollutants

concentrations focus on NO2 and SO2, the most harmful of these oxides.

EUU, Alm.del - 2018-19 (1. samling) - Bilag 471: Rapport fra Den Europæiske Revisionsret januar 2019

Transport and climate: the drive for clean air

Some of the reasons encouraging us to drive diesel cars represent policy failures for clean air.

First, diesel vehicles were a key element for car manufacturers in the EU to comply with their CO2

reduction obligations set in EU law. In order to reach an average of 130 g of CO2 per km by 2015,

and 95 g per km by 2020, car manufacturers had a very strong incentive to ramp up production

of diesel cars: since diesel cars produce less nasty CO2 emissions than petrol cars.

Second, in most Member States diesel is taxed more lightly than petrol.

This encouragement of diesel may make sense from the point of view of climate change

mitigation, but this is evidently not the case from the point of view of clean air. And all this is

before dieselgate…

Dieselgate: the emission standards myth

The public debate on the pros and cons of different types of combustion engines has recently

been fuelled by the Dieselgate scandal. Technological developments and EURO standards have

been much less successful in reducing NO2 emissions than CO2 emissions. It has been known for

years that real nitrous oxide emissions from diesel cars on the road were higher than those under

test conditions. The Dieselgate scandal highlighted the scale and causes of these differences. Put

bluntly, the EU’s diesel emission standards were a myth. More politely, the EURO 6 standard of

80 mg NOx emissions per km - decided by the EU legislators back in 2007 for implementation in

2014 - will not have to be met on the road for years to come.

But it is not all doom and gloom. The Commission has introduced a more realistic car testing

regime. Moreover, during our air quality audit, we saw that cities around the EU were gradually

taking concrete action to reduce air pollution by cars: for example, by encouraging clean public

transport, or discouraging the use of older diesel cars. Finally, citizens and civil society are

becoming more aware of the causes and consequences of air pollution, and are increasingly

holding their governments and administrations to account.

ECA reports connecting health to mobility

Since 2010, the ECA has published 13 special reports related to different transport and mobility

modes. In at least half of these reports we highlight the policy aim of shifting to low-carbon

transport. Low-carbon transport is also an issue examined by the ECA landscape review on

transport and mobility published in December 2018 and the ECA landscape review on energy

and climate change published in 2017.

Our

special report 23/2018 on air pollution

stands out in linking transportation to health concerns,

making a number of recommendations to the Commission which should help driving forward

improvements to the air we breathe. The report got considerable media attention . Another ECA

report on serious cross border threats to health in the EU (special report 28/2016) also makes the

link between health and mobility, but then in relation to pandemic diseases and health security.

Finally, on 7 February 2019, the ECA published a briefing paper on the EU’s response to the

‘dieselgate’ scandal. In this review we also refer to the harmful effects to health of certain emissions

and we set out the actions taken, at the level of the EU and Member States, and describe changes

made to the system for measuring vehicle emissions after September 2015.

EUU, Alm.del - 2018-19 (1. samling) - Bilag 471: Rapport fra Den Europæiske Revisionsret januar 2019

Transport and climate: the drive for clean air

Figure 3 - NO2 emissions on the road (in g/km) from European diesel passenger cars

compared with regulated emission limits

Source: ICCT, Impact of improved regulation of real world NOx emissions from diesel passenger cars in the

EU, 2015-2030, p. 1

In particular, our review draws the attention to the slow impact of improved standards on actual

NOx emissions by diesel cars (see

Figure 3)

and highlights lessons to be learnt. It also points

out some impediments related to measures undertaken or proposed, and challenges that may

impact the changes to be introduced in road transport to decrease health casualties and risks EU

citizens are exposed to. Whether they are on the road…or, for many of them, off the road .

EUU, Alm.del - 2018-19 (1. samling) - Bilag 471: Rapport fra Den Europæiske Revisionsret januar 2019

Are the EU’s flagship projects on course?

– Auditing EU infrastructure investments

in core transport networks

By Emmanuel Rauch, Investment for Cohesion, Growth and Inclusion Directorate

Railway bridge over Daugava river in Riga, Latvia, part of the Rail Baltica

The ECA is currently undertaking an audit of EU Transport Flagship infrastructure

investments. Emmanuel Rauch, principal manager at the ECA, has been closely

involved in the planning of this audit and provides some details about it and

how audit information is being gathered, for example through organising a

meeting of high-level experts in Luxembourg later this year.

Common transport policy - as old as the road to Rome…and its Treaty

The importance of effective communication channels was already obvious to the

Romans when they decided to build a network of

via romana

all across their empire. Two

thousand years later, putting in place a modern and reliable transport infrastructure is

still a precondition for getting the most out of freedom of movement for both people

and goods, two fundamental pillars of the EU.

A common transport policy has existed since the beginnings of the EU: it was already in

the Treaty of Rome signed in 1957. Over the years the EU budget has provided billions

and billions (more than €210 billion in the 2000-2020 period) to build and improve

communication routes and hubs (railways, roads, motorways, inland waterways, ports,

airports, etc.).

Nine core corridors linking Europe

Today, one of the main priorities of EU transport policy is to complete the ‘Trans-European

Network for Transport.’ It concerns all transport modes – air, road, rail, maritime and

inland waterways. While the Comprehensive Network is due to be completed by 2050,

the European Commission’s first priority objective is to have the most critical elements

of it, the Core Network, composed of nine corridors, completed by 2030, linking the

main industrial and port regions in Europe.

Source: Shutterstock

EUU, Alm.del - 2018-19 (1. samling) - Bilag 471: Rapport fra Den Europæiske Revisionsret januar 2019

Are the EU’s flagship projects on course? – Auditing EU infrastructure investments in

core transport networks

Figure 1 - The Nine Ten-T Core Network Corridors

The ECA has audited transport infrastructure projects on a number of occasions, with

the aim of contributing to the completion of the network. The most recent publication

on the topic is special report 19/2018

A European high-speed rail network: not a reality but

an ineffective patchwork.

Currently the ECA is carrying out an audit on the transport flagship infrastructures on the

EU core transport network. In this context, we will assess eight ‘mega’ transport projects

(each of them representing a total construction cost of much more than €1 billion). All

are politically sensitive, have been under discussion for decades, and aim to address key

missing links between national networks (e.g. the Lyon –Torino project aims to connect

the French and Italian high speed railway networks) and/or important bottlenecks. Most

of them are cross-border and for many of them the political decision to go forward with

the project was already taken 25 years ago by the European Council of Essen in 1994.

Source: European Commission

EUU, Alm.del - 2018-19 (1. samling) - Bilag 471: Rapport fra Den Europæiske Revisionsret januar 2019

Are the EU’s flagship projects on course? – Auditing EU infrastructure investments in

core transport networks

The

eight Transport Flagship Investments

that the ECA has included in its

ongoing audit are:

Lyon – Torino high speed railway connection;

Rail Baltica, linking Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland with a standard gauge

rail line;

Basque Y connection, linking three cities in the Basque region through high-speed rail;

A1 motorway in Romania, connecting Bucharest with regions in the western part of the

country;

Seine –Escaut project, linking the Oise River with the Canal Dunkerque-Escaut, creating a

better maritime connection between the Seine basin and North-Western Europe;

Fehmarn Belt Fixed Link project is an immersed tunnel project to connect the Danish

island of Lolland with the German island of Fehmarn;

E59 Railway project in Poland, part of the Wroclaw-Poznoan railway;

Brenner Base Tunnel project, a railway tunnel through the base of the Eastern Alps

beneath the Brenner Pass.

Coordinator for each corridor

For each of the nine corridors composing the Core Network, the Commission has

nominated a European Coordinator. These persons are chosen on the basis of their

knowledge of issues relating to transport and financing, as well as on their experience

with European institutions, and their functioning.

Their mandate includes:

•

drawing up the relevant corridor work plan (together with the Member States

concerned);

supporting and monitoring the implementation of the work plan; as and when

necessary, highlighting difficulties and looking for appropriate remedies;

regularly consulting the corridor forum (a consultative body bringing together

Member States and various stakeholders);

making recommendations in areas such as transport development along corridors

or access to financing / funding sources;

annual reporting to the European Parliament, Council, Commission and the

Member States concerned on the progress achieved.

The importance and the nature of their responsibilities make them key persons for the

ongoing audit. That is why the audit team took the initiative of inviting them to come to

Luxembourg to discuss together their views on the main issues relating to the process

for planning, financing and deciding on the construction of such mega projects, as well

as their understanding of their own responsibilities.

From patchwork to real corridors

As suggested in our recent high-speed performance audit, it is very likely that moving

from patchwork to real corridors will require the Member States to pay more attention to

EU priorities and the Commission to get real power to enforce implementation of earlier

commitments. We are already looking forward to our discussions with these high-level

experts, which is planned to take place at the ECA in April 2019.

EUU, Alm.del - 2018-19 (1. samling) - Bilag 471: Rapport fra Den Europæiske Revisionsret januar 2019

The embedded translator – interpreting

for auditors during on-the-spot audit

visits of transport infrastructure

By Richard Moore, Translation, Language Services and Publication Directorate

You can spend as many hours

as you like in ministries and

meeting rooms, discussing

transport infrastructure projects

and trying to understand them

through the numbers. But if

you want to really understand

these projects, the challenges

involved in building them, and

the demands placed on them,

nothing beats seeing them with

your own eyes. Richard Moore,

a translator in the ECA’s English

language service, shares his

experiences providing linguistic

assistance to our auditors during

their on-the-spot visits.

The explosives drilling truck

Journeying deep into the Earth

That is what we are doing here in Bolzano. It is early autumn, and the morning is bright and clear:

some last rays of autumn sun. For the team and me, that is too bad. However bright the morning,

we will not be seeing much of it. We are going to be spending most of the day far underground,

where something big is being drilled and blasted out of the Dolomite mountain range, one slow

metre at a time. Bolzano is surrounded by rock. Hundreds of metres under it are the beginnings

of the Brenner Base Tunnel, a tunnel which will allow high-speed trains to run directly under

the Alps between Innsbruck and Bolzano, avoiding the steep and slow existing route over the

Brenner Pass.

We have spent most of the last few days in an office in Bolzano, holding meetings with the

company which has been coordinating the work on the tunnel. As a result, we have learned that

the Brenner Base Tunnel will be fifty-five kilometres long when it is finished. It will carry around

four hundred trains per day, at speeds of up to two hundred and fifty kilometres per hour, sixteen

hundred metres under the Alps, on an upwards gradient of up to zero point seven four per cent.

Scary? A bit, maybe...

Now we’re about to find out what those numbers mean. We’ve been driven to a building site

near the Austrian/Italian border, at a place called Mules. A tall man in overalls has just handed

us hard hats, hi-vis jackets and waterproof boots with steel toecaps, and told us to put them on.

He is a senior engineer for this section of the tunnel; we do as we are told. ‘I don’t think they’re

detonating any explosives in this section today,’ he tells us. ‘But I’d better just check before we

go in.’

EUU, Alm.del - 2018-19 (1. samling) - Bilag 471: Rapport fra Den Europæiske Revisionsret januar 2019

The embedded translator – interpreting for auditors during on-the-spot audit visits

of transport infrastructure

To build a tunnel, you could start at one end and work in one direction. Or you could halve the

construction time by starting digging at both ends, making them meet in the middle. The people

behind this tunnel, though, are aiming for speed. They’re tunnelling at four sites at once: from

both ends, and also from two intermediate sites dug directly into the mountain range. The Mules

site is one of the ones in the middle.

Of course, tunnelling equipment does not just conveniently appear underneath a mountain

range. Somebody has to put it there and assemble it, and the place where that’s done is our

first stop after we’ve descended in our four-wheel drive down an excavated service tunnel

wide enough for two trucks to pass. We keep meeting these trucks speeding towards us in the

opposite direction; the tunnel is steep and the ceilings are low, and the trucks seem unnervingly

close when they pass us. After a ten-minute drive down, we end up in a massive chamber which

has been excavated out of the rock. It feels like being in a massive cathedral hall, though its size

is more akin to that of an aircraft hangar. This is the central operations base where the excavation

work is coordinated, and where equipment is stored and made ready.

A non-typical day for a typical translator

This is not the sort of day’s work you might

expect a translator like me to be doing. But at

the ECA, translators often support their auditor

colleagues by providing linguistic support on

the spot on audit visits. I have been lucky to

play a supporting role in various infrastructure

audits: on the way, I’ve seen EU support being

used to its most tangible and impressive effect.

For a translator, these missions are interesting

and useful: interesting, because they have

allowed me to see how auditors work and think

when they are working on the spot, and useful,

because an in-depth understanding of the

subject matter helps me to help the auditors

further when it comes to drafting the report.

Seeing is believing

Back in the tunnel, we are driven further

under the mountain, to the very front of the

construction work. Huge drills are being used

to drill holes for explosives into the end of

the tunnel: the rock in this section is too hard

for tunnel-boring machines, so the engineers

have to blast their way through.

At the end of the visit, we drive back out of

the tunnel back into the light of day: back into

the sunlight, where we can breathe normally

again. The team knew the data behind the

tunnel before, but seeing the project ‘in the

flesh’ has given them a better understanding

of how EU funds are being spent to improve

the continent’s transport infrastructure.

Richard Moore on a partly completed bridge in Spain

The cavern where the machinery is assembled

EUU, Alm.del - 2018-19 (1. samling) - Bilag 471: Rapport fra Den Europæiske Revisionsret januar 2019

Directors' Cut

EU transport policy needs a strategic heart

Interview with

Gabriele Cipriani, Martin Weber and Gerhard Ross,

respectively the successive and current directors of the

‘Investment for Cohesion, Growth and Inclusion’ Directorate

By Derek Meijers and Gaston Moonen

From left to right: Martin Weber, Gerhard Ross and Gabriele Cipriani

The ECA landscape review on transport and mobility issues, published in

December 2018, builds, in particular, on 13 special reports published by the

ECA since 2010. With that in mind, we invited the three ECA directors involved in

producing these reports for an interview. Gabriele Cipriani led the Investment

for Cohesion, Growth and Inclusion Directorate from 2002 until 2014, and

retired from the ECA in December 2018. In 2014, Martin Weber took over, and

left in 2017 to head the Directorate of the Presidency. Gerhard Ross, who has

been director at the ECA since 2016, succeeded Martin in May 2017. Gerhard

has thus been in charge of this directorate when the more recent special reports

on passenger rights and high speed rail, as well as the landscape review itself,

were finalised. The aim of bringing the three directors together was to obtain a

more holistic view of this policy area over the last decade, but also to provide a

preview of what audits under the new Multiannual Financial Framework could

look like.

Some conclusions of the past … still valid today

A comparison of current ECA reports on transport with those of about a decade ago can offer

some interesting insights into developments in the ECA’s approach to auditing transport

policy and programmes. Gabriele Cipriani explains: ‘When I became director in this area there

was already the question was how the ECA itself could help improving the effectiveness of EU

transport policies. Let us take for example special report 6/2005 on trans-European networks

for transport. It has two conclusions, which, I am afraid, might still be valid today. Firstly, we

concluded that the financial aid, disbursed under the so-called TEN-T programme, was allocated

in an overly fragmented way and was not sufficiently focused on cross-border projects. As such,

it would not achieve its European added value to the fullest.’ The second conclusion, as Gabriele

recalls, refers to coordination of transport infrastructures by different EU funding programmes,

which the ECA recommended should be strengthened.

EUU, Alm.del - 2018-19 (1. samling) - Bilag 471: Rapport fra Den Europæiske Revisionsret januar 2019

Interview with Gabriele Cipriani, Martin Weber and Gerhard Ross

He emphasises that 10 to 15

... regulatory measures

years ago there was increasing

matter more than

awareness at the ECA that,

money in many

besides the usual financial and

respects.’

compliance audit work, there was

a need to further develop performance audits to

deliver added value. ‘But this was easier said than

done. How to develop for example performance

indicators in a context where the objectives

were so wide and eligibility criteria not always

that clear.’ Referring to another special report,

08/2010 on improving transport performance on

Trans-European rail axes, he says ‘Here we clearly

indicated that funding is not necessarily the

most important element as regulatory measures

matter more than money in many respects.’

“

Gabriele Cipriani

Martin Weber

Martin Weber agrees that the issue of eligibility

is a concern. ‘For these mega projects like the

Brenner Base tunnel, fulfilling a key role in

the major EU corridors, the eligibility criteria

are decided at a political level. These projects

are funded because there is a political will

behind it. The question is then how would you

assess this? Most often they are stand-alone

projects. And, just to give an example, you

cannot easily compare one mega tunnel with

the other, particularly when looking at the

economic rationale behind these projects.’ He

considers that one interesting feature of many

of these EU-funded mega projects in transport

is their cross-border character. ‘These concern

tunnels through the Alps or the Pyrenees, the

Fehmarn belt bridge, the Euro tunnel. And that

adds additional complexity to these projects

because several actors from different Member

States are involved.’

Gabriele adds that there is also a time dimension since most of these projects take a long time

to be completed. ‘And what was a priority in the nineties might not be a priority now - be it for

advancing technological or other reasons - which explains some of the reluctance to invest in

some corridors.’ He gives the example related to the Lyon – Turin corridor. ‘It was put forward

within a national strategy, and then became part of the TEN-T corridors. Yet, now it risks to be

called into question by the Italian government, while five years ago it was considered a priority.’

Using EU funding as catalyst for change

For Gabriele it is also clear that the EU budget for transport needs to be put into perspective.

According to estimates drawn up by the Commission in 2011, the cost of EU infrastructure

development to match the demand for transport has been estimated at over €1,5 trillion for

2010-20130. The completion of the TEN-T network requires about €550 billion until 2020, out

of which some €215 billion can be referred to the removal of the main bottlenecks.. Obviously

only a fraction of this can be supported through EU funding. This shows how important it is to

concentrate the EU budget on where it can serve as catalyst.’ Gerhard underlines this view by

adding to this the budgetary perspective that for the 2007 to 2020 period the entire EU funding

instruments in support of transport amounted to €193 billion.

Martin points to what he considered a major challenge

for the EU at the time when the ECA started to produce

its performance reports on transport. ‘Before the 2004

enlargements the transport was mainly north –south.

Most road and rail infrastructure was built that way. With

enlargement, everything turned east - west and there was

“

... With enlargement,

everything turned east

- west and there was no

infrastructure[...] Perhaps

not many people realise how

successful the EU has been in

creating this structure.

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Interview with Gabriele Cipriani, Martin Weber and Gerhard Ross

no infrastructure, or what was in place was not adequate to cope with the rapidly increasing

traffic flows. Perhaps not many people realise how successful the EU has been in creating this

structure. It is clear that not all cohesion funds have been used in the best possible way. But I

believe it has played a crucial role and without EU funding this success would clearly not have

been possible.’

As second point Martin mentions is market liberalisation. ‘The EU single market has had a

tremendous effect. In the 1990s, you still had a rather controlled and regulated transport sector

with mostly domestic companies running the business. Although there are still protected niches

– for example in rail – the situation now is very different, with far more businesses operating

EU-wide .’ In addition, regarding technological change and innovation, he states that ‘like the

other two developments, this trend will continue and it is difficult to predict in what way this will

impact traffic flows. It could mean more traffic, less traffic, difficult to tell.’

Facilitating competition between modes of transport

When discussing the diverse developments in the different modes

of transport, Martin raises the issue of equal competition between

types of transport. ‘For example, in relation to our special reports

on airports. That was intrinsically linked with taxation because

without subsidising fuel for planes, for example, there would not

have been this level of demand. Prices would be higher and fewer

people would fly.’

Gerhard Ross ties this to a lesson that can be

learnt: ‘Our findings regarding underutilised

sea ports and airports tell you there is a

problem with cohesion funds, namely that

they can fund things which are not needed.

In that sense transport expenditure can be

an obstacle for the EU to reach the goals it

is committed to, since euros spent on such

underutilised infrastructure are not available

to be spent on something better.’

This issue touches upon one of the key

challenges identified in the 2018 ECA

landscape review on transport: focusing EU

funding on those priorities with the highest

EU added value. Gerhard ties that to another

Gerhard Ross

challenge: ‘We also identified as a key

challenge the enforcement by the EU of closer alignment of national infrastructure decisions

with EU policy priorities. But the problem is if the lion’s share of the funding is coming from

Member States and not the EU budget, whether the EU level has the power to do so.’

Gabriele agrees with Gerhard. ‘All the more since, as a result of

the Multiannual Financial Framework agreement, for structural

If [...] the regions can

policies there is a funding – also called ‘envelope’ - for every country

do what they want,

then you arrive at the

- which in many of them is further subdivided by regions. If, due to

conclusions the ECA

the absence of an overall intervention strategy, the regions can do

had to draw regarding

what they want, then you arrive at the conclusions the ECA had

empty seaports.

to draw regarding empty seaports. The question here is also: Why

does the Commission not take a firm stance, simply by making

the commitment of EU funds conditional upon the existence of a certain number of guarantees

(among others, an operation plan) to ensure the sound financial management of EU funds.’

“

Our findings regarding

underutilised sea ports

and airports tell you

[...]that they can fund

things which are not

needed.

“

EU involvement when strategic decisions are prepared

Gabriele points out that sometimes interests are so divergent that if becomes difficult even to

devise a strategy, giving the example of inland waterways. Martin agrees: ‘The problem with

inland waterways is that it immensely expensive to maintain the infrastructure, to build the

channels, etc. If you do not have a particular economic interest, then of course it brings back the

issue of lack of funds. In a fully liberalised single market, it can be counterproductive to decide

on transport infrastructure at a regional and national level. It simply does not make sense from

an EU perspective.’

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Interview with Gabriele Cipriani, Martin Weber and Gerhard Ross

With that in mind, Gerhard remarks that it would make more

sense to take out EU transport investments from the European

Creating a European

Regional Development Fund (ERDF). ‘But wherever you put it,

infrastructure for the

main corridors across the

the main share will still have to come from the Member States.’

Union, fully funded and

On that issue, Gabriele argues that EU funding decisions should

maintained by the EU,

aim at maximising European added- value. ‘For transport in

and also label it like that.’

particular this implies taking account of the cross-border

perspective … I think you should go out of the purely national

dimension.’ Gerhard brings in the issue of will: ‘To maximise their impact EU resources, which are

limited, should focus on the highest priorities and EU added value. But what does that mean,

exactly? That is also a question of political will.’ Martin, with a laugh, suggests: ‘Why not take

inspiration from the Americans? They have federal highways. Creating a European infrastructure

for the main corridors across the Union, fully funded and maintained by the EU, and also label it

like that.’

“

All three directors agree that from a strategic point of view the Commission is not sufficiently

involved in the approval of the biggest strategic projects. Martin: ‘That is a major issue because

the misallocation of money happens when the decision to launch the project is taken. For the

major transport infrastructure projects, which have an impact which goes beyond the Member

State in which the project is located, it is crucial to have this independent view from the outside,

looking at the bigger picture.’

More audits on transport issues

Gerhard remarks that transport is the biggest area of expenditure in cohesion. ‘Over 70% of this

expenditure is spent on roads and rail. However, we also see an increased importance in 2014-

2020 for multimodal transport and intelligent transport systems. Thus, it is not surprising that

transport issues dominate the topics of the reports in our audit chamber. And they are appealing

too, people can relate to it.’ He adds that his directorate has now six ongoing audits on transport

issues.

Martin points out that in ‘his’ period this was slightly different. ‘We did not have the luxury to

choose at the time. It was good if you got one audit on transport through. Do not forget that

when I started we did three or four special reports per year in the directorate. Now you are doing

10 or 12, preceded by many more proposals.’

In addition, the focus in the transport area itself has changed.

... increasingly the

Martin: ‘In the past, the EU budget in this area was mostly about

question will be

building new infrastructure. But increasingly the question will be

about maintaining or

about maintaining or upgrading what we have. Actually, in the

upgrading what we

past it was not permitted to spent EU money on maintenance.’

have.

He thinks it needs to be changed now because the big issue is

maintenance. ‘Take the bridges in Italy, but also Germany and many other countries: a significant

share of them are under close surveillance because the authorities are no longer sure that they

will hold.’ Regarding maintenance Gerhard adds another aspect: ‘During the financial crisis,

maintenance spending went down in the Member States. And the EU budget co-financed

investment only.’

“

For Gabriele, maintenance relates closely to sustainability. ‘We made similar remarks years ago

in our audits on waste water treatment, noting in particular that over dimensioning of the

project can only aggravate the maintenance issue.’ Martin adds: ‘Some countries have problems

building an airport, let alone maintaining it. And as the EU’s external auditor we have a nice

competitive advantage: cross country comparison.’ He then refers to special report 5/2013, where

the ECA compared the cost of building comparable structures of motorway in four Member

States (Poland, Greece, Germany and Spain). ‘Germany came out as most cost effective, which

was counter-intuitive. I am convinced that if we did more of these benchmarking audits, similar

results would emerge.’ He adds with a laugh: ‘It is also interesting that in some countries, such as

the Czech Republic, prices seemingly went down, following our report.’

But has an ECA audit actually resulted in stopping an EU programme? Gabriele refers to a report

published when he was director, special report 03/2013 regarding the Marco Polo report for rail

freight. ‘We concluded that there was no real added value in the programme. In the end the

Commission accepted this and the programme was discontinued.’

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Interview with Gabriele Cipriani, Martin Weber and Gerhard Ross

Taking a user’s perspective

Turning to more intangible aspects of transport, like passenger rights, Gerhard finds that looking

at the issue from the customer’s angle in such audits is a good opportunity because ‘It raises

interest and we were rather successful with it in the media. We looked at the subject from the

perspective of users, and used surveys to collect their views. One of the outcomes was a list of

ten very hands-on tips on how to avoid problems with enforcing your rights as a passenger. It

was quite a novelty in the house to put this in the press release, related to special report 30/2018.’

Martin adds: ‘Carrying out such an open survey where every EU citizen could participate was

certainly a new element, and we should use it more often in our audits.’

Gerhard points out that besides the performance audits, his directorate also looks at the financial

and compliance side of projects. ‘You have public procurement, issues with eligibility rules, or

non-compliance with state aid. It is the normal list of the main sources of error. Nothing specific.’

Martin adds that there is often a public perception that there is a lot of mismanagement in EU-

funded projects. ‘But in reality the compliance issues are much fewer, and spending is probably

much more regular than in comparable projects that are exclusively funded from national

budgets. This is mainly so because national authorities are afraid of the Commission imposing

financial corrections so extra care is taken that the files are correct and rules are complied with.’

He thinks that it is not just the money. ‘With errors the EU programmes come are interrupted or

even suspended, there are further investigations and potential damage to the reputation of the

implementing bodies. Nobody wants such trouble, and it may help that projects co-financed

from the EU budget are often comparatively clean.’

Gabriele has a more cautious view of the effectiveness of financial corrections, at least in the time

when he was leading the Investment for Cohesion, Growth and Inclusion Directorate. ‘For many

years projects with errors in them were simply substituted by other projects. As a result, there

was no true financial impact while at the same time the focus on errors deflected the managers

from content issues. Moreover, the Commission’s approach, considering that the negative effect

on the EU budget was neutralised simply by applying a financial correction whenever something

was found, ignored the opportunity cost of this money not having been made available for other

compliant projects. The rules applicable to financial corrections recently changed, but it is still

too early to say whether this has made them more effective.’

Martin indicates that he visited nearly all the big tunnel projects in the Alps. ‘I have also been to

the 57 km Lyon – Turin tunnel currently under construction, for an estimated cost of €8 billion.

This new tunnel will replace a much shorter, high-altitude tunnel on which construction started

when Savoy was still part of Italy. But when the tunnel was finished in 1872, Savoy had been sold

to France. And therefore it became a border tunnel.’

Transport is in the picture

Selecting the audit topic and assessing the programme is one thing, getting media attention for

it is another. When discussing how the ECA nowadays draws attention to its reports Gabriele is,

like the two others, very positive. 'I think this is the way to go, as I was all in favour of producing

the predecessor of press releases – then called information notes – for our reports.’

Martin, speaking in his current role as Director of the Presidency in charge of communication,

adds: ‘From the 15 top special reports in 2018, three relate to transport; the ones on Public-

Private Partnerships, high-speed rail and passenger rights.’

Gerhard adds: ‘Our special report 23/2018 on high speed rail was the ECA report with the highest

media coverage in 2018. Special Report 9/2018 on Public-Private-Partnerships was also taken up

with great interest, and there were a large number of references made to it in specialised journals

and the audit team got invited to speak at several conferences across Europe.’ Martin remarks

that Special Report 23/2016 on seaports even contributed to developing a new national seaport

strategy in Italy. (see also page 62)

When it comes to assessing the use of intelligent systems and

... Also negative aspects

digitalisation in transport, there are and will be a number of

of transport – pollution,

reports covering this – a report on the European Rail Traffic

noise, air quality - will

Management System (ERTMS) is published and a report on

continue to attract our

air traffic management is published while a second one on its

audit interest.’

deployment is in the reporting phase. Gerhard: ‘We will also be

looking at urban congestion and mobility. Also negative aspects of transport – pollution, noise,

“

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Interview with Gabriele Cipriani, Martin Weber and Gerhard Ross

air quality - will continue to attract our audit interest.’ An example of the latter is the briefing

paper the ECA published in early February 2018 on vehicle emissions .

EU transport achievements most visible … when it breaks down

Taking a wider perspective, Martin concludes: ‘I think in the

EU we have progressed a lot in terms of policy and legislation.

But it is not always that visible to citizens. I think these massive

changes are not perceived as such. People cannot grasp that

ultimately many of the things that became better are related to

European initiatives.’ Gerhard adds: The looming departure of

the UK from the EU will most likely show how important many of

the EU achievements are, particularly in the transport area.’

“

I think in the EU we have

progressed a lot in terms

of policy and legislation.

But it is not always that

visible to citizens.

The three directors agree that the advantages gained through EU actions, including those in

transport, do not always stand out in the ECA reports. Gerhard: ‘In our audits we also try to identify

positive elements, but it is not always easy. If we have a positive finding it is often followed by a

“however.”’ Martin adds: ‘We are looking at things that have been done and we are looking for

problems with these things. This sometimes leaves the things that go particularly well, or where

additional EU involvement would add value, untouched because that is not our specific role in

the EU accountability system, or currently not yet perceived to be our role in the house.’

Professional insights not necessarily having an impact on private transportation habits

When asked how all these audits on transport have influenced

their own choice of methods of transport, the three directors

I am a convinced train

have to think a bit longer. Martin says 'In fact, I am a convinced

user but this is being

train user but this is being made more and more difficult. One

made more and more

difficult.

example is that if you want to go to by train from Luxembourg to

Milan, 20 years ago you could take a direct train. Now, you have

to take a TGV to Mulhouse, get a local train to Basel, a Swiss train to Italy, or even changing again

in Switzerland. And you cannot buy a single ticket. Not really a customer-friendly approach. In

my view, this is an area where additional regulatory measures are needed. The operators need

to be forced to provide these cross-border services all along the distance, otherwise you are lost

as a customer.'

“

Gabriele replies: ‘I cannot say I have been influenced by my official duties. But I have changed my

habits – in recent years I have started to come to the office by bus rather than by car. This was,

however, due to the fact that the ECA chose to offer the ‘Jobkaarts’ to its employees. I just made

good use of them.’

Gerhard, laughing: ‘In terms of my mobility, I would say that my work has rather reduced my

mobility in the last year, at least over the weekends: because then I needed to read and comment

on draft transport reports at home.’

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Creating a level-playing field in the EU: fair

opportunities for the different transport

modes require regulatory action

Interview with Michael Cramer,

Member of the European Parliament

By Gaston Moonen

As former Chair of the European

Parliament’s Committee on Transport

and Tourism Michael Cramer has

dealt with several ECA reports

that examined EU investments in

transport, like airports, seaports

or getting freight from road to rail.

How useful are such reports for a

Member of the European Parliament

(MEP), and particularly for him, being

entrenched with transport issues both

as a politician back in Germany and

now at the EU level? Michael Cramer’s

experience in the area is not only rich

and diverse, and he is known to be an

adept user of public transport.

Energy as driving force … towards transport

Michael Cramer, Member of the European Parliament

Speaking with Michael Cramer it quickly becomes clear that

transport has been a red thread through his professional and

My thinking then, and

political life. With a large impact on his personal life, trying to make

now, is that without a

use of public transport means as much as he can. At the roots of

change of mobility, we

cannot save the climate.

this interest in transport politics, and what later motivated him to

join the Green party in Germany, was the energy dilemma. ‘I was

against nuclear power stations and I took part in the protests against the plans to build a plant

in Whyl, in Baden Württemberg, in the early seventies. And, when thinking about it then, already

then I considered that energy and transport belong together. My thinking then, and now, is that

without a change of mobility, we cannot save the climate.’

“

He quickly provides some figures for this reasoning, and throughout the interview it becomes

clear that figures are important to his arguments. ‘Currently, in the EU, the transport sector is

responsible for 24% of all the CO2 emissions. And within that more than 70% from road transport.

For myself I decided, to be consistent with my political beliefs, to sell my car in 1979.’ He explains

that being without a car does not necessarily mean to be less mobile. ‘If you have a car you

probably do not like too much taking a taxi. But if you have no car, instead of waiting twenty

minutes in the winter for the next bus, you take a taxi, which I did. And then I gathered all my taxi

receipts. And it turned out that using the taxi rather frequently during the entire year costed me

not much more than driving my car for one month.’ He summarises: ‘So it was more comfortable,

it was considerably cheaper, and … better for the climate!’

On the question whether he missed the freedom that a car can give to go where you want he

replies with a big laugh: ‘No, the freedom is actually greater without a car than with a car. Suppose

you are with a group of people and you drink two beers. If you are there by car you need to stop

there. I was allowed to drink to a third beer, and even sometimes a fourth one.’ Moreover ‘In a

city, with a car, you usually also need more time.’ He acknowledges though that renouncing a car

is much easier in the city than in the countryside where there are much fewer public transport

connections.

Then back to some figures, making clear how important the link is between transport and

climate. ‘You must know that the transport sector in the EU is the only sector where you have

an increase in CO2 emissions since 1990. We have a decrease in the industry by nearly 40%. We

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Creating a level-playing field in the EU: fair opportunities for the different transport

modes require regulatory action

have a decrease in the energy sector by 25%. And we have a

decrease in CO2 emissions by 25% in the housing sector.’ He

points out that the trend is totally opposite in transport, saying

that since 1990, there was an increase in emissions by 25%. ‘So

the transport sector nullifies all the efforts we have done with

billions of euros from our taxpayers in other sectors!’

Picking low hanging fruit in transport modes

Within the transport sector Michael Cramer clearly believes that there are still numerous

possibilities to improve things through picking low-hanging fruit. Take for example automation

in the different transport modes. Michael Cramer: ‘We have nearly automation in the air sector

by the pilots in the aircraft, up to 90% is done through automation. But what is happening in the

other transport modes? I live in Berlin and 40 years ago we had a fully automated underground

line in Berlin. But there was such a fear that the passengers would not like it that the operating

authority put every time one person in the train to give the impression that he or she was driving

the train. But it was all automated! But after two years they stopped the automated lines.’ And he

comes up with another current example, with automated lines in Lille.

He points out that now everybody is mainly thinking about automated driving on the road. ‘But

this is actually very complicated. For instance, if there is an accident, who is responsible? The

one who produced the car, who bought the car or the one who sold the car?’ In his view there

are many possibilities for automation in other transport modes. ‘And the same applies to electric

mobility, with 95% thinking about electrification of road traffic.’ Again he has figures to clarify

his point. ‘I can tell you, in the EU we have nearly 50% of the rail network which is electrified. But

electrification takes a long time. . In Germany, the decision to electrify the whole rail network

was taken in 1909. More than 100 years later, we are only at 60%.’ In contrast, Switzerland has

achieved 100% electrification, and Belgium stands at 70%.

But Michael Cramer is a fan of public transport not only for

environmental reasons. ‘I like very much to quote Hans Jochem

Vogel, former minister and party leader in Germany. When he

was a very young mayor, 47 years ago, in Munich in 1972, he

said: “the car is murdering our city.”’ He explains that, even if all

becomes electric, one would still have too many cars, with all

the downsides on safety, time loss, parking problems. ‘We will

continue to be for many thousands of hours in a traffic jam. I

therefore say: we have to avoid, we have to reduce the use of cars!’

“

... the efforts we have

done with billions of

euros from our taxpayers

in other sectors!

“

We will continue to be

for many thousands of

hours in a traffic jam. I

therefore say: we have to

avoid, we have to reduce

the use of cars!

Michael Cramer emphasizes that not only the Greens are making this point. ‘I now come with

a figure from car-friendly minister, Peter Ramsauer from the Bavarian CSU. He said: “In German

cities, 90% of all the distances made by car, is less than six kilometres. And six kilometres or less

are ideal distances for going on foot, by bike, by tram or by bus.”’ Then the MEP from the Green

party gives another figure: ‘If I would have told you, 30 years ago, that today more than half of

people in Copenhagen will commute to work by bike , you would have said: 'Crazy guy, continue

dreaming.' But this is now reality.’ He sights, saying: ‘Because they had a plan and they got it

realised.’ And technology and innovation also takes away the argument of adverse topography.

‘Twenty years ago we were told that is fine to cycle in the Netherlands or northern Germany, but

not in mountainous Bavaria. But now, with electrical bikes, this argument is gone.’

Related to this Michael Cramer brings up the so- called ‘Giesskannenprinzip’ – freely translated,

scattering the resources over many people. He is in favour of the electrification of bikes, and

likewise of buses, taxis, etc. ‘But not according to this ‘Giesskannenprinzip,‘ with a pot of €5 billion

in Germany available to subsidize everybody who wants to buy an electric car, even when it is a

very expensive car.’ In his view, money should be provided for electrification of specific stretches,

for example the Berlin –Brotslave rail line . ‘In a stretch of 350 km there is a gap of 50 km which

is not electrified. It would cost about €100 million to close this gap and you will save 2,5 hours

travel time.’ Then, with some agitation: ‘Spending €410 billion, in 20 years, to reduce the time

from Berlin to Munich by roughly two hours, that is not a problem. But with one percent of this

sum you can save - in one or two years - two and a half hours. But that is too much money.’ He

gives this as example of a potential that, in his view, is often ignored: ‘Only 5% of the passengers

in the EU are travelling on high speed trains, 95% of the passengers are on distances that are less

than 50 kilometres.’

Michael Cramer gives another example where he finds that just reasoning rationally, easy gains

can be made by providing tailor made solutions. ‘Take Berlin where you need most time to get

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Creating a level-playing field in the EU: fair opportunities for the different transport

modes require regulatory action

from your house to the bus station, or the underground station. But in Berlin you can take your

bike in trams, underground and S-Bahn. With this combination I am a lot quicker than by car.’

He recalls that, when he was in the State Parliament of Berlin, he would go by bike for nine

kilometres. ‘With public transport I would need 45 minutes, by bike only 30. So I did it at least

four times a week, so I saved one hour a week. My car-driving friends, instead went four times a

week to a fitness center, but it takes them 30 minutes to drive there, another half an hour to look

for a parking place, half an hour jumping in the fitness center, and half an hour back. Six hours in

the car for the same 30 minutes of physical activity!’

Bringing an explicitly green transport mode to the EU stage

Even outside politics cycling is clearly one of Michael Cramer

favourite topics, so it comes at no surprise that he has also written

a cycle guide on the routes along the former Iron Curtain. In his

view, cycling is also a key factor in tourism. ‘In the past people

thought that bike tourists are students, people with no money. I

think that has changed totally. There is a study from Switzerland

that a bike tourist spends € 35 per day, without accommodation,

compared to only € 10 by a car tourist. We know that cycling

is environmentally friendly and healthy. But economically, the

effects are not that well known. That must be changed. Building

infrastructure for bicycles, such as bicycle paths and parking, is

cheap, but the economic benefits can be very high.’

“

We know that cycling is

environmentally friendly

and healthy. [...] Building

infrastructure for

bicycles, such as bicycle

paths and parking, is

cheap, but the economic

benefits can be very

high.’

He gives an example regarding the Danube trail, where in Serbia they counted 500 bike tourists

in 2008. And after some signposting it increased in four years to 13 000. ‘In the EU, the market

for bike tourism is estimated at €44 billion.’ For comparison he refers to the value of the cruise

ship industry in the EU, good for €39 billion. ‘But when the cruise shipping industry wants to

have a new terminal for €500 million authorities think: that is good for jobs and business. But

€5 million to support bicycle tourism is often considered too expensive. I always mention it to

the representatives of the bike industry. You must come together and then there is potential to

influence political decision making, also since you are an economic factor.’

EU funding concentrated on big infrastructure projects

Michael Cramer finds it positive that now, for about two years ago, the European Commission

has said: ‘OK, we will now, for the small missing links, make available €110 million.’ He laughs:

‘Then many wishes surfaced, and now the amount increased to €140 million euro, and they will

continue working on this.’ He believes that creating these smaller links will enable the EU to come

together. ‘Since decades we are investing billions of euros in the rail infrastructure, but if you look

at the map, it remains a patchwork with weak cross-border links.’ He gives another example of

this problem. ‘Take the link between Brussels and Valenciennes in France, where the European

Railway Agency is located. Today you need two hours to go there from Brussels, by train. There is

a gap of not more than 800 metres. If this gap were to be closed, you would only need one hour.

But in the last 30 years this missing link has not been built.’

Michael Cramer points out that in principle he has nothing

against big infrastructure projects, but that it is sometimes

...most of the big projects

have nothing to do with

much more efficient to invest in smaller connections. ‘For

transport, in my view

example, the Rail Baltica is very important to connect the

they were rather created

Baltic States with the rest of Europe. But the Lyon – Turin

to support the building

corridor, and even the Fehmarnbelt tunnel project, they

industry...

are not necessary. Moreover, these projects take up a lot of

money. I always say: most of the big projects have nothing to do with transport, in my view they

were rather created to support the building industry and perhaps even the banking industry.’

“

When speaking about the role of the EU in funding all these major connections, Michael Cramer

underlines that many Member States take EU funds to finance national projects. ‘Take for example

the transport corridor Stockholm – Palermo. Germany said: we want to have money for the

stretch between Berlin and Erfuhrt. They took EU funding for that. But then, from Munich to the

Brenner Base tunnel, they don’t even have a design. They are building the Brenner Base tunnel

but not doing anything for the connection.’ Then he brings up the Gotthard tunnel in relation

to which Switzerland, Netherlands, Italy and Germany signed a treaty 23 years ago to ease the

traffic flows across the Alps. ‘Switzerland built the Gotthard tunnel and now Germany did not do

anything to upgrade the rail connections along the Rhine valley. From Basel to Karlsruhe, around

€4 billion of investments are needed to build this stretch. And three years ago, the budget in

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Creating a level-playing field in the EU: fair opportunities for the different transport

modes require regulatory action

Germany earmarked for this project was €19 million euro. So it would take 200 years to build this

missing infrastructure, absolutely crazy.’ He also gives an example of the opposite, namely to create

a tunnel that will enable to increase the number of high speed trains from Italy to France from five

to seven per day. ‘Not per hour, but per day. Italy wants to have this project built, for an estimated

€12 billion. Already now, the French Cour des comptes said it would be €26 billion instead. Which is

apparently not a problem for the French and Italian governments. For two trains per day more! But

when small projects are discussed with cost overruns the conclusion often is: 'We have to stop it.' '

ECA reports to trigger change toward an equal EU level playing field

From 2014 to 2016 Michael Cramer was the Chair in the European Parliament’s Committee on

Transport and Tourism (TRAN). In that capacity, he has studied several ECA special reports assessing

EU performance on transport. He explains that for most transport projects with co-financing the

project the decision to carry out the project is taken by a Member State. ‘But, I would prefer the

Commission to have a stronger mandate to look at where the EU money is actually going. With

as main criteria not the national perspective, but how good it is for the EU and, as a result, to

what extent it should be funded with EU money! Therefore I very much like the ECA reports. And

when I was chairing TRAN Committee I invited the ECA to present the reports in our parliamentary

committee.’ He recalls a trip MEPs from his Committee made to Greece, where there was a new

harbour. ‘When construction was finished there was not a single ship. Because the winds were

most often too strong. Why is this not taken into account before? Or the ECA report about regional

airports, with findings which are absolutely astonishing.’

Michael Cramer is convinced that the EU needs to create a level

playing field for transport and stresses how important it is that

the ECA produces reports such as the one on airports. ‘I know

that some airlines were against. We have in Germany 23 airports

offering at least some international connections and only six are

making profits, all others are in deficit.’ He compares it with the

situation in rail: ‘If a connection there is making deficits it must

be closed. We have an unfair competition between the transport

modes and we are supporting, with tax payer’s money, those modes

which are environmentally damaging, and not the ones which are

environmentally friendly.’

“

We have an unfair

competition between

the transport modes

and we are supporting,

with tax payer’s money,

those modes which

are environmentally

damaging

When we discuss the Connecting Europe Facility through which the Commission has a more direct

say in transport projects, Michal Cramer is not convinced that this programme will work better

in the long term. He gives the example of some big projects in Italy: the Gotthard tunnel, the

Brenner Base tunnel, the Lyon-Turin connection. ‘Not a single project is finalised. In my view, the

Commission should insist that the most important links are finalised first, before other projects

can be initiated. For example, as long as Italy is not able or willing to upgrade the rail connection

towards the Gotthard tunnel, which is finished, to complete the corridor from Genoa to Rotterdam,

they should not get EU money for other projects.’ He also believes that the Commission should

leverage more with the big projects to get smaller connections also done: ‘As long as these small

projects are not finalised, you will not get EU money.’

Despite all these shortcomings, Michael Cramer remains optimistic

about the future for transport. ‘I am convinced we can save mobility

I am convinced we can

and the climate. I will give you an example. In the EU we have a law

save mobility and the

climate.

that requires that each locomotive for each km of track has to pay

a toll. For roads, it is the decision of the Member State if they want

to have a toll. And in Germany it is only on highways and some regional roads. If you look at the

EU, 100% of the railway network it tolled. And only 3% of the road network is tolled.’ A situation he

considers unsustainable given that rail is environmentally friendly, whereas roads are clearly not.

“

Looking at aviation the MEP presents points to the hidden subsidies for this industry: ‘The airlines

get every year €30 billion from EU taxpayers because these airlines do not pay kerosene tax and

on international connections they do not pay no value added tax. Passengers on rail have to pay

this. So it is easy to go for 80 euro from Berlin to Paris by plane. If you take the train you have to pay

180 euro. That is simply not fair competition! And as a Green politician I say very modestly: give the

same rights for everybody. Either everybody is paying a toll or nobody. Either everybody is paying

an energy tax, or nobody. The same for value added tax. If I go from Berlin by train to Brussels. It

takes three times longer, is three times more expensive, and the Member State takes 19% of VAT. If

I take a flight for the same journey, there is no VAT, no fuel tax, etc.’

EUU, Alm.del - 2018-19 (1. samling) - Bilag 471: Rapport fra Den Europæiske Revisionsret januar 2019

Creating a level-playing field in the EU: fair opportunities for the different transport

modes require regulatory action

Michael Cramer does not believe that the EU would get into trouble if a fuel tax would be introduced.

‘This competition argument is a fake argument. Of course I believe that a kerosene tax only for

Germany is not good, it would not be fair. But we can do it in Europe. We are a strong continent, with

many interesting destinations, and many people are coming here, and then they pay kerosene tax.’

He believes that paying €15 more to go from Berlin to Lisbon will not make you change your mind

to take the trip. But it would help to create an equal level playing field for the different transport

modes. ‘And then we have not even spoken about the fact that some airlines are prohibiting their

staff to be a member of a trade union. Where do we live…?’

When it comes to business interests Michael Cramer provides a grim example. ‘At the moment we

are fighting for passenger rights for railways. We want to have establish that in all the trains, also

the high speed trains, you can take your bike. The railway companies are against, thereby creating

a red carpet for their biggest competitors. It is not a problem to take my bike in a flight or in a Flix

bus. In the last 15 years, the number of passengers in busses who wanted to take their bike with

them increased from 15 000 to 100 000. In Germany, the railway companies will not allow it. And we

should have a EU wide information platform, accessible for customers. But railway refused, saying

such information is confidential. But if it is not a problem for airlines to share such information, how

can it be a problem for them?’

He also gives an example of non-transparent rail ticket price

Why is it not possible that we

setting: ‘Buying an online ticket in Germany, going from

have one single app for the

Cologne to Prague is cheaper than a ticket from Cologne to

European rail network?

Passau, which is a shorter distance.’ He sights: ‘Why is it not

possible that we have one single app for the European rail

network? It looks like the railway companies are among the last nationalistic bodies in the EU. I am

even convinced that they would earn more money if they would work together, at a European scale.’

“

Key challenges from an MEP perspective

Michael Cramer considers fair competition to be one of the key challenges in transport. ‘Either

everyone is paying VAT or no one, and the same goes for tolls and energy taxes. As a Green, I would

say: those transport modes that are environmentally friendly, they have to be subsidised. But I am

modest, I just ask for fair competition.’ However, he acknowledges the constraints the EU is facing

in the area of fiscal policy: ‘You know, taxation is not up to the EU, taxation is still a decision of the

Member States. And that must be changed. It cannot be that this continues. For creating an equal

level playing field in transport, but also in view of companies like Google and Amazon not having

to pay taxes or very little. Fair competition requires fairer taxation.’

As second challenge he thinks the EU should reconsider the focus of its investments. ‘In 20 years we

have built a high speed rail from Berlin to Munich. For €20 billion, saving two hours. But how long

will it take to get this investment back? Or the return on investment for the Lyon – Turin connection.

This condition of return on investments seems to be gone for the big projects and is only applied for

small projects.’ He makes the connection between the two points: ‘For the rail connection between

Berlin and Munich it takes now four hours. But because it is so expensive many people go by plane,

from Berlin to Munich, although they do not save time. But they save money.’

The MEP thinks that several ECA reports regarding transport

it would help if the ECA

have helped to get some future challenges clearer. ‘But I think

would more often also

it would help if the ECA would more often also look for, and

look for, and present, good

present, good examples. Take the ECA special report on airports.

examples.

Nearly all the examples were bad. Perhaps it was very difficult

to find examples of good practice. But, for example if you say, this airport benefitted from improved

railway connections, and this has helped them to have attract more passengers and better financial

results.’

“

Most importantly, Michael Cramer believes that the EU need to set different priorities for its transport

policy. ‘Funding is not necessarily the main problem. In my view, only if there is a different policy

we can decide whether we need more money. If you do not change the attitude, more funding for

transport would just mean that more money is lost!’

EUU, Alm.del - 2018-19 (1. samling) - Bilag 471: Rapport fra Den Europæiske Revisionsret januar 2019

EU auditor’s recommendations

contributing to a reassessment of public

spending on port infrastructure in Italy

By Graziano Delrio, Member of the Italian Parliament

Port of Napels

Graziano Delrio was Minister of Infrastructure and Transport in Italy from April

2015 to June 2018. When he was about 18 months in office as Minister, the

ECA special report on maritime transport was published, presenting a rather

unfavourable assessment of investment in port infrastructure in Italy and other

EU countries. Graziano Delrio explains how he, as Minister in Italy, used this

report as guidance and inspiration for adjusting spending priorities on port

infrastructures in Italy.

Port capacity as focal point…

In 2016, the ECA published its special report 23/2015

Maritime transport in the EU: in troubled waters

– much ineffective and unsustainable investment.

This report, which assessed the effectiveness of

national and EU investment in seaports turned out to be an important benchmark for our work

in this area in Italy.

When I was appointed to the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport in April 2015, we set out

to analyse why our logistics system was uncompetitive. The severe imbalance between national

infrastructure supply and demand soon became apparent. Italy’s quays could potentially handle

over 18 million TEU – standing for Twenty foot Equivalent Unit, the unit of cargo often used to

describe the capacity of container ships and terminals. This was, however, significantly above

the 10-11 million TEU historically transported. Despite these existing imbalances, further coastal

expansion measures were either planned or already underway to increase capacity by another 10

million TEU. None, or very few, of these measures were plans to invest in technological innovation

or control systems, customs modernisation, ‘last mile’ connections between ports of national

importance and the rail network or TEN-T corridors, ‘last mile’ road connections, or incentives to

encourage a shift from all-road transport to road/rail or road/sea combinations.

Italian public expenditure on logistics was almost entirely focused on increasing port capacity.

This was unnecessary, despite the large number of port and logistics operators. On the other

hand, there was no provision for the factors needed for competitiveness, such as connections with

inland terminals and networks, digitisation, simplification or support for multimodal transport.

Source: Pixabay

EUU, Alm.del - 2018-19 (1. samling) - Bilag 471: Rapport fra Den Europæiske Revisionsret januar 2019

EU auditor’s recommendations contributing to a reassessment of public spending

on port infrastructure in Italy

… while interconnectivity was the key need

We then drew up the national strategic plan for ports and logistics, which the Italian government

approved in August 2015. The plan set out the profound changes we had decided to make to

the sector in ten strategic objectives and 50 specific actions covering standards, regulations,

operation and administration.

One objective was a painstaking project review to reorient public resources from unnecessary

infrastructure works to useful connections and innovations in the national logistics system. Some

major projects, such as those in the ports of Ravenna, Augusta and Livorno, were reorganised

and brought into line with traffic forecasts. We also put expansion works in places such as

Civitavecchia and Venice on hold. Other projects, by contrast, were fast-tracked as they were

strategic in making ports accessible by sea, starting with dredging the ports of Gioia Tauro and

Naples. Many measures were completed, such as in Taranto, Cagliari and Messina.

We diverted the resources recovered from these complex project reviews to other types of

intervention, in particular intangible infrastructure. We saw these as a priority in order to make

Italian logistics more competitive. We recovered resources for one specific RFI programme, 'Rail/

sea link – last mile', on which we spent more than €200 million. We invested a further €40 million

in digitising services and operations within the Customs Agency and Harbourmaster’s Office

by introducing the PMIS and AIDA systems. Lastly, we used around €250 million to finance the

Ferrobonus

and

Marebonus

combined transport incentives.

… and EU – Member State cooperation part of the action

We invited Enrico Grassi, who had coordinated the ECA audits of seaports in Italy, to the second

national ports and logistics forum held by our ministry in Livorno in 2017, to see for himself what

a great inspiration the ECA special report was for our government. An excellent example of how

EU auditors can make a helpful contribution to addressing key policy issues in a Member State!

Former Minister Graziano Delrio and ECA auditor Enrico Grassi, both speaking at the second national ports

and logistics forum held in Livorno in 2017

EUU, Alm.del - 2018-19 (1. samling) - Bilag 471: Rapport fra Den Europæiske Revisionsret januar 2019

Progress is slow on High-Speed Rail

across the EU

By Oskar Herics, ECA Member

High speed train in Spain

In June 2018 the ECA published special report 19/2018 in which it described

the 10 000 km high-speed rail network in the EU as an ‘ineffective patchwork

of national lines without proper coordination across borders.’ The EU auditors

visited France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Portugal and Austria and examined around

half of the current network. Oskar Herics, the ECA Member who coordinated the

audit, explains in the article* below why the auditors came to the conclusion

that the European high-speed rail network does not yet exist in reality. And

how this affects the lives of Juan and Giulia, two student friends from Spain and

Italy wishing to travel across Europe.

High-speed rail bring numerous benefits for passengers

In Europe, Japan and China in particular, but also in other parts of the world, high-speed rail is

considered an innovative transport mode, with numerous benefits for passengers. Often, high-

speed rail can compete with air travel on speed and is actually much faster, especially when

measured from city centre to city centre. It is a comfortable, safe, flexible, and environmentally

sustainable means of transport. Moreover, better connecting regions across the EU makes them

more competitive and contributes to European integration by bringing people closer together.

But is high-speed rail also cost-efficient and effective, and well though-out and planned?

During our audit, we examined the situation on the ground (or rather, on the tracks) in six Member

States that have received over 80% of all EU funding allocated to high-speed lines since 2000:

France, Portugal, Spain, Austria, Germany and Italy. Overall, we assessed 10 high-speed rail lines

and four cross-border connections, covering some 5 000 km of high-speed lines, or half of the

EU’s current network. Seven of these lines were already operational at the time of our audit. We

also analysed 30 projects, worth over €6 billion in EU co-financing, including the Brenner Base

Tunnel on the planned Munich-Verona high-speed line, connecting Germany to Italy through

Austria. We only analysed lines co-financed by the EU; however, most of the funding for these

lines obviously still comes from national sources.

Our general conclusion was that a European high-speed rail network does not yet exist in reality.

In its current state, it is rather an ineffective patchwork of poorly connected national lines. We

also found that there is no realistic long-term plan to connect the different parts of the EU’s

* This article was also published by Railway-News on 4 October 2018. See

https://railway-news.com/eca-

high-speed-rail/

It has been re-edited for this publication in the ECA Journal.

Source: Pixabay

EUU, Alm.del - 2018-19 (1. samling) - Bilag 471: Rapport fra Den Europæiske Revisionsret januar 2019

Progress is slow on High-Speed Rail across the EU

existing network. In particular, we found that building high-speed lines crossing national borders

is not a priority for national governments, and that the European Commission has no power

to force them to do so in order to ensure rapid progress towards completing the core network

corridors previously agreed by all Member States. To us, this means that the added value the EU

co-financing provided is low.

Practical implications of a patchwork high-speed rail network

Meet ‘Juan,’ a fictional character invented for the purpose of this article. He is Spanish, lives in

Murcia and likes to travel across the EU. Since the turn of the millennium, his country has been

investing heavily in high-speed rail infrastructure, making its network the world’s second-largest

after China’s. With some €11 billion, Spain is also by far the largest recipient of EU contributions

for high-speed rail, accounting for almost half of the EU total of €23.7 billion. Now Juan wishes to

travel to Trieste, Italy, where his girlfriend Giulia lives. Juan and Giulia met during their Erasmus

study exchange programme in Groningen, the Netherlands. But Juan cannot just get on a plane

and fly to Trieste: there is no direct connection, so he would need to change planes at different

airports, probably both in Spain and Italy. He would probably also have to fly with different

airlines, which would also make it difficult for him to keep both travel time and costs down.

Our findings indicate that it would also be difficult for Juan to travel by high-speed rail seamlessly

in combination with other transport modes. For example, even though high-speed lines pass

near Spain’s busiest airports, in Madrid and Barcelona, there are no plans to connect them to the

high-speed rail network by high-speed services. So Juan is facing similar issues to many of his

fellow Europeans as regards accessibility, interconnectivity and even ticketing. For example, rail

ticketing compares poorly with that of the airline industry, and single e-ticketing solutions, such

as those allowing passengers to book trips involving more than one operator or crossing borders,

are much easier for air travel than for rail. Furthermore, there are virtually no search engines for

combined air/high-speed rail travel.

Juan also has many friends abroad who, like him, wish to travel in a fast, safe, and environmentally

friendly manner within Europe. Unfortunately, the possibility of doing so seamlessly via high-

speed rail is still rather limited in Spain, just as it is across the rest of the EU. So, in practice, Juan

will need to take a conventional train to Madrid, change there on to a high-speed train going

through Barcelona and onwards to cross the border into France, where he will then have to

change on to a conventional train towards Italy, and so on. This is a reality for many citizens, as

there is no EU-wide network of high-speed lines. In fact, this ‘network’ can rather be described as

a patchwork of national high-speed rail lines planned and built by the Member States in isolation,

resulting in poor connections between them, especially along national borders.

High-speed trains running slower than design speeds

In many cases, we found that trains are running on very high-speed routes at far lower average

speeds than these lines are designed to handle: on the lines we examined, they ran on average at

less than 50% of the maximum design speed. We warned that this raises questions about sound

financial management, as an upgraded conventional line would have been enough to achieve

such speeds at a much lower cost.

Only two of the 10 lines examined were operating at an average speed of above 200 km/h,

and none above 250 km/h. For example, Spain’s high-speed network for the most part uses the

standard gauge found in the rest of the EU. This is the case on the Barcelona-Madrid and Madrid-

Seville lines in particular. However, three of the lines we examined still use the traditional wider

gauge. On these lines, the maximum operating speed is limited to 250 km/h and the real average

speed is far below the maximum operating speed of 300 km/h for high-speed operations in the

country. What is more, the use of different gauges makes interconnectivity impossible.

Cost-benefit analyses should be used to support investment decisions

High-speed rail infrastructure is expensive. The lines we examined cost an average of €25 million

per kilometre. In total, aggregate cost overruns for the projects and lines examined were 5.7

billion euros at project level and 25.1 billion euros at line level. Eight of the thirty projects we

examined had been delayed for at least one year, and five out of ten lines had experienced delays

of more than a decade.

A major factor in the cost of building a line is the specific geological conditions where it is built.

Besides these external aspects, the cost of a line increases proportionally with its design speed,

since infrastructure capable of handling very high-speed operations is more expensive. This

implies that setting up a line running at 300 km/h or more, for example, is particularly costly. The

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Progress is slow on High-Speed Rail across the EU

decision on whether a full very high-speed line is really necessary therefore needs to be made on

a case-by-case basis.

Giving due consideration to the alternative solution of upgrading existing conventional lines

could save billions of euros. For the planned Venice-Trieste line in Italy, for example, we found

that building the high-speed line cost €5.7 billion more than an upgrade would have done and

saved only 10 minutes in travel time by comparison. This translates into a cost of €570 million per

minute of travel time saved. This is considerably higher than the average cost of €90 million per

minute of travel time saved for all the lines we examined during our audit.

We also found significant differences in how the Member States assessed the need to build a

high-speed line and how they organised the decision-making process. In particular, we found

that decisions to build high-speed lines are often based on political considerations, and that

these major public investments were not always founded on a sound cost-benefit analysis. In one

case, in France, we found that the cost-benefit analysis had resulted in a negative benefit-to-cost

ratio. This was also the case in Spain, where several lines were not considered to be viable from

a socio-economic perspective. In Germany, cost-benefit analyses were carried out only after the

decision had been taken.

Moreover, we observed that the cost-benefit analyses are generally not updated to take

account of changing circumstances. For example, the cost-benefit analysis for the Brenner axis

between Munich and Verona – which includes one of the longest railway tunnels currently under

construction – has not been updated since 2007 despite already a delay by around eleven years

and increased costs by 46 %. In the meantime, however, critical factors such as building costs,

anticipated delays and traffic forecasts have changed considerably and further reduced the

benefit-to-cost ratio.

Target of tripling the network unlikely to be met by 2030

Although the length of national high-speed rail networks is steadily growing, the EU target of

tripling the length of high-speed rail lines from currently some 10 000 km to 30 000 km by 2030

is unlikely to be reached. A key factor is the long time it takes to plan and construct a high-speed

rail line: overall, for the lines we examined, it took an average of 16 years for a line to become

operational.

But there is also good news: the number of passengers using high-speed rail in Europe is growing

steadily, from roughly 15 billion passenger-kilometres in 1990 to more than 124 billion in 2016.

This growth, however, is not spread equally among the lines. Ideally, a high-speed line should

carry nine million passengers per year to be successful. But for three of the seven completed

lines we examined, the number of passengers carried was far lower. This poses a high risk to the

sustainability of these lines. In addition, nine of the 14 audited lines and cross-border connections,

including the three mentioned above, did not have a sufficiently high number of potential

passengers living in their catchment areas to be successful. This carries a risk of having to deal

with not less than

€2.7

billion of ineffective EU co-funding.

Room for further development in high-speed rail…

We approached our audit very much from a passenger’s point of view. For example, we analysed

the different connections, travel times and prices for business and leisure passengers, and we

found that high-speed rail can compete with other modes of transport. However, there is room

for improvement in many practical aspects, in particular: better-integrated ticketing systems,

better accessibility of train stations, more frequent connections and competitive ticket prices.

These are all key factors that can help high-speed rail in acquiring a larger market share over time.

Rail transport in general suffers from the failure to fairly apply the user-pays and polluter-pays

principles across the various transport modes. In addition, even though the European rail

industry is operating as a single market with more than 500 million customers, there are still over

11 000 national rules to be complied with, and no common rules for cross-border rail transport.

Furthermore, the liberalisation of the rail sector is progressing only very slowly. As far back as

2010, we recommended lifting all technical and administrative barriers in another special report,

but our audit revealed that they still exist in 2018. This being the case, it is difficult to believe that

true EU-wide competition can exist in the high-speed rail sector.

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Progress is slow on High-Speed Rail across the EU

ECA auditors on a benchmarking visit in Japan.

From left to right: Pietro Puricella, Oskar Herics, Luc T’Joen, and Thomas Obermayr

…and a number of specific recommendations

In the light of our findings, we made a number of

recommendations

to the European

Commission, including:

•

carry out realistic long-term planning

•

agree with Member States which key strategic sections to implement first, based on an

assessment of the need for very high-speed lines, as well as close monitoring and enforceable

powers

•

link EU co-financing to earmarked strategic priority projects, effective on-track competition

and the achievement of results

•

simplify cross-border tendering procedures, use “one-stop-shops” for the various

formalities, and lift all remaining administrative and regulatory barriers to interoperability

improve seamless high-speed rail operations for passengers through, for example, e-ticketing

and simplification of track access charges

Our report generated high media and public attention in some Member States and it was

even covered several times outside Europe. However, publishing our findings, conclusions and

recommendations is not the final step in the process. We have presented to and discussed them

with the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers, the EU’s legislative and budgetary

authorities and, most recently, had an exchange on the report with a Japanese delegation on

behalf of the Ministry of Transport of Japan.

Many of the recommendations we make in our reports are put into practice: this high level of

take-up underlines how much our work benefits EU citizens. And finally, going back to Juan and

Giulia, the ECA published a report on the Erasmus+ study exchange programme in the EU in early

September 2018.

EUU, Alm.del - 2018-19 (1. samling) - Bilag 471: Rapport fra Den Europæiske Revisionsret januar 2019

The French

Cour des comptes’s

rail

transport audits:

helping the rail system to adapt

By André Le Mer, Cour des comptes française

A TGV on the

High-Speed Rail Nord

When it comes to high-speed rail many Europeans had their first

fast rail

experience in the TGV – the

Train Grande Vitesse.

Since the 1980’s France has

been the pioneer in this transport mode. And since a lot of public money, and

particularly French public money is involved, so is the French Court of Audit,

the

Cour des comptes française,

assessing also performance and impact of

the French railway system in general and the TGV in particular. André Le Mer,

conseiller maître in the

Cour des comptes,

has been in charge of many audits

in this area. He explains below about the questions raised, the approach used

and impact of the work he and his colleagues undertook in this area.

Various issues at stake

The French Court of Audit, the

Cour des comptes française,

is pursuing a multiannual audit strategy

of reviewing the various components of rail transport in France. The report we published in 2014

on high-speed rail -High-speed

rail: a model extended beyond its relevance -

marked a turning

point here, as it challenged an economic model that was too focused on large-scale projects to

the detriment of ‘ordinary trains.’ We try to answer questions about rail-transport issues that are

both simple and complex: how can the performance of the French railway system be improved

while reducing the cost to taxpayers? Each of our audits enables us to deepen our methods of

investigation and analysis through regular exchanges of experience with our colleagues at the

ECA.

Rail transport is an important audit topic for the French

Cour des comptes

because the issues at

stake are very varied: performance and service quality; economic, social and industrial aspects,

and massive financial and budgetary commitments for taxpayers. Each year, France allocates

almost € 14 billion to its railway system in the form of various contributions.

A multi-annual audit strategy

The French

Cour des comptes

pursues a multiannual strategy that is based on audits of France’s

major public transport companies (SNCF, the national rail carrier, and Paris’s RATP urban network)

and on thematic surveys covering entire sectors of the railway business. We have focused on rail

passenger transport in particular, as this area will be opened up to competition in France at the

end of 2019.

Source: French

Cour des comptes

EUU, Alm.del - 2018-19 (1. samling) - Bilag 471: Rapport fra Den Europæiske Revisionsret januar 2019

The French Cour des comptes’s rail transport audits: helping the rail system to adapt

In 2013-2014, we therefore audited the high-speed transport (TGV) network and the network

of conventional intercity trains. In 2016, we examined the rail-transport network of the Ile-de-

France region and SNCF’s freight business, and since 2018, we have been investigating the

regional express transport (TER) network, as well as carrying out a performance audit of RATP’s

transport services in Paris.

Since 2011, we have also carried out several audits of the management of the French rail network

and of companies responsible for major infrastructure projects. In 2017, we audited the

Société

du Grand Paris,

which manages the

Grand Paris Express

automatic metro project, and in 2018-

2019 we are auditing TELT, the company responsible for the Franco-Italian rail tunnel project

between Lyon and Turin.

The 2014 high-speed rail audit: a two-year investigation

In In 2013-2014, we examined one of France’s

grands projets:

its high-speed rail network, which

has developed very rapidly since the first high-speed rail (HSR) line was opened between Paris

and Lyon in the early 1980s.

The audit consisted primarily of sending detailed questionnaires to stakeholders (the State,

SNCF and RFF, the body responsible for managing the rail network), examining public and non-

public documents (minutes of management board meetings and statements of inter-ministerial

decisions), and field trips. Two HSR projects were given particular attention: the

Sud-Europe

Atlantique

(Southern Europe Atlantic) project and the Poitiers-Limoges HSR project. We also

interviewed a large number of managers from the companies concerned, as well as officials from

French ministries and the European Commission (DG Move).

Our audit lasted two years. After a thorough feasibility and framework study, we created a major

documentary database that included benchmarks, statistical data (from the Ministry of Transport,

Eurostat, INSEE and SNCF, as well as raw national transport-survey data) and academic studies.

The audit findings: the economic limits of a major industrial success

Our report yielded three main findings. The first confirmed that the HSR network has been

developed to the detriment of the conventional rail network. A previous audit from the

Cour des

comptes

back in 2012 had already sounded the alarm about the lack of financial resources for

maintaining the conventional network, and several technical audits carried out by Swiss experts

had drawn attention to the worrying state of the French network.

Renovation of the French railway network through railway construction wagons

Source: French

Cour des comptes

EUU, Alm.del - 2018-19 (1. samling) - Bilag 471: Rapport fra Den Europæiske Revisionsret januar 2019

The French Cour des comptes’s rail transport audits: helping the rail system to adapt

The second finding was that the decision-making process for creating new high-speed lines was

almost always biased in favour of building them. The political decision to launch a project all too

often preceded socio-economic impact studies, which were often unduly optimistic. The State’s

shortage of resources also meant that it had to seek funding from local authorities, and led it to

make disproportionate commitments about a line’s route or number of connections, thereby

undermining the future profitability of the lines concerned.

The third finding was that the TGV network was progressively less cost-effective. The French rail

model allows TGVs to leave the high-speed network in order to run at much lower speeds on the

conventional network. ‘Ordinary’ trains, by contrast, cannot switch to the TGV network. To satisfy

the requests from many towns for a high-speed service, TGV services were therefore extended

far beyond the HSR network. The upshot was that the TGV network, with 230 destinations in

France, was overstretched and became unprofitable. At the same time, the conventional intercity

network, which was cheaper in principle, began to shrink and its rolling stock to decline.

In short, TGV services were becoming less profitable and the cost of the HSR system was in danger

of no longer being publicly sustainable, while resources to renovate the conventional network

were also lacking. The rail network manager RFF (which became

SNCF Réseau

in 2015) sought to

resolve this conundrum by incurring ever greater debts (€ 45.2 billion at the end of 2017).

Our report elicited considerable public reaction in 2014, including sharp criticism from politicians

and user associations, who regarded our findings as questioning one of France’s major industrial

achievements and its policy of guaranteeing equal access to the HSR network. Nevertheless, four

years on, we now see that our findings are broadly shared. The French government has thus

declared that no new high-speed lines will be launched and that the financial priority is now to

renovate existing networks.

Progressively more sophisticated investigation methods

The development of our rail audits has meant that we have had to adapt our methods. Our

audits have evolved from traditional audits of organisations to performance audits with a focus

on analysing effectiveness and efficiency. Accordingly, we have just produced an analysis of the

economic and financial model of

SNCF Réseau

and are currently carrying out a performance audit

of Paris’s RATP urban network.

First of all, we are striving to improve the preparation and planning of our audits and we are

frequently also involving the regional chambers of the French

Cour des comptes,

responsible for

auditing local and regional authorities. Our work also entails making international comparisons,

which are very useful in the area of transport. For our ongoing audit of the TER network, we have

visited Sweden, Germany and Switzerland to seek comparable data.

Our investigations now take place more often on the ground, and involve meeting staff where

they are actually working, e.g. at night-time maintenance sites and signal boxes for our audit of

SNCF Réseau.

We also often work with samples, e.g. as part of our current RATP audit, where we

have chosen to study certain bus and metro lines.

Lastly, we are aware of our limitations. So increasingly we call upon outside experts, e.g. to

evaluate information systems.

A close relationship with our ECA colleagues and greater dialogue with other European

SAIs

The publication of our HSR audit provided an opportunity to deepen our relationship with our

colleagues at the ECA. We came to Luxembourg in October 2014 to present our report, and the

resulting exchange of views was very much appreciated by all parties. Dialogue between our

respective institutions is already frequent: our top managers meet once or twice a year, and our

transport specialists also now meet on a regular basis to discuss planning, and their respective

approaches and methods. An example was the recent meeting we had in Paris in January 2019.

This dialogue is all the more fruitful for being informal and very pragmatic. Auditors of the

Cour

des comptes

and the ECA were therefore able to discuss HSR matters together in 2017 when the

ECA launched a performance audit of Europe’s HSR network, culminating in its special report

EUU, Alm.del - 2018-19 (1. samling) - Bilag 471: Rapport fra Den Europæiske Revisionsret januar 2019

The French Cour des comptes’s rail transport audits: helping the rail system to adapt

19/2018 report

A European high-speed rail, network: not a reality but an ineffective patchwork.

auditor of the French

Cour des comptes

was particularly pleased to be able to take part in the

ECA’s related audit missions in France as an observer. The ECA’s experience of performance audits

in the area of transport also serves as an incentive for us to develop our own audits in the field.

Such exchanges are particularly useful in areas such as major cross-border projects that are

implemented jointly by several Member States. Here, the ECA has a unique overview, by virtue

auditing EU financing and its impact. However, it is in this very area of major international

projects - where the funding at stake is significant - that we have noted the constant danger of

a ‘blind spot’ between national Supreme Audit Institutions (SAIs). The fact that, legally speaking,

SAIs have only partial jurisdiction over transnational projects means that their audit work needs

to be coordinated in order to obtain a comprehensive view of any given project. It is surely in this

area that cooperation between national SAIs – and, if EU funding is involved, possibly also with

the ECA - will have to progress in the future.

EUU, Alm.del - 2018-19 (1. samling) - Bilag 471: Rapport fra Den Europæiske Revisionsret januar 2019

An ex-post evaluation of a Japanese high-

speed rail project — Hachinohe to Shin-

Aomori on the Tohoku Shinkansen

By Eiji Onaka, Japan Transport and Tourism Research Institute

A Japanese bullet train –

Shinkansen

For most Europeans the best-known high-speed rail project outside Europe

are the high-speed trains in Japan. They go by the name of Shinkansen, but are

known in English as 'bullet trains.'The first

Shinkansen

line opened in 1964. The

network is famous not only for its speeds of up to 320 km/h (Japan holds the

world record for trains at 603 km/h), but also for its efficiency and punctuality.

Japan also leads the world when it comes to the key role played by rail in

connecting the different parts of the country and its top-notch maintenance

of trains and infrastructure. Good as this is, however, what really counts is the

societal impact of high-speed lines: what do they mean for people’s daily life?

This was an important component of Eiji Onaka’s research. As Senior Research

Fellow in the consulting department of the Japan Transport and Tourism

Research Institute, he recently examined an evaluation of the Shinkansen

stretch between Hachinohe and Shin-Aomori, both in the north of Japan. In

this article he shares the main objectives and results of the evaluation.

The Japan Transport and Tourism Research Institute

The Japan Transport and Tourism Research Institute (JTTRI) is an independent, non-profit

organisation which was founded in 1968 through initiatives of the Japanese Ministry of

Transport, academic institutions and business organisations. The JTTRI maintains close relations

with the Japanese government, the academic community and the transport sector and conducts

research and surveys on topical issues. It has served the government and the transport/tourism

sector in this way for the last 50 years.

Source: Pixabay

EUU, Alm.del - 2018-19 (1. samling) - Bilag 471: Rapport fra Den Europæiske Revisionsret januar 2019

An ex-post evaluation of a Japanese high-speed rail project — Hachinohe to Shin-

Aomori on the Tohoku Shinkansen

The JTTRI’s research activities have included:

•

Preparing the evaluation manual for a railway project;

Evaluating the underlying assumptions and soundness of a proposed railway project

so as to comment on the advisability of running the project;

Conducting surveys on the effect/impact of Shinkansen operations.

A JTTRI delegation visited the ECA on 4 February 2019

On 4 February 2019, a delegation of the Japan Transport and Tourism Research Institute

(including Eiji Onaka) met with ECA Member Oskar Herics and the audit team in charge of

the audit on high-speed rail in the EU (special report 19/2018) for an exchange of views

on the European and the Japanese high-speed rail systems and the main differences and

similarities between the two. The topics discussed also included the regional development

and environmental impacts of high-speed rail. During the audit, the ECA team had also visited

Japan to benchmark high-speed rail in Japan with developments in the EU.

Evaluation of public projects in Japan

In Japan, the main purpose of a public project evaluation is to improve the efficiency of the

project and ensure transparency. There are the usual three types of evaluation distinguished by

their focus:

•

Ex-ante evaluation, including a cost/benefit analysis, before a new project is approved;

Mid-term evaluation;

Ex-post evaluation after completion of the project. Here the aim is to conduct a follow-

up assessment of the project’s effectiveness and its impact on the environment,

passenger choices, etc. Subsequently, corrective measures may be proposed and

followed up, if necessary. Another aim is to use the evaluation results for planning and

assessing similar projects and, last but not least, for reassessing the evaluation method

itself.

In Japan, evaluations are considered important since they help citizens to understand a project’s

value. Evaluating a project may also enhance communication and improve understanding in and

of local communities.

A simple outline of the ex-post evaluation of a Shinkansen project by the Japan Railway

Construction, Transport and Technology Agency (JRTT) is presented below.

Outline of Tohoku Shinkansen between Hachinohe and Shin-Aomori

The aim of this project was to expand the national Shinkansen network in line with government

legislation, thus improving and contributing to national economic development and local

population growth and promoting the region. In particular, it was intended to contribute to:

•

expansion of the settled area;

the development of tourism and recreation;

economic revitalisation along the Shinkansen corridor.

The Tohoku Shinkansen between Hachinohe and Shin-Aomori started to operate in December

2010. The line is 81 km long. When it opened, it shortened travel time between Tokyo and Shin-

Aomori by 16% — from 3h 59 minutes to 3h 20 minutes. Now, about eight years later, Japan

Railway East has further increased average speeds, slicing another hour from the journey.

EUU, Alm.del - 2018-19 (1. samling) - Bilag 471: Rapport fra Den Europæiske Revisionsret januar 2019

An ex-post evaluation of a Japanese high-speed rail project — Hachinohe to Shin-

Aomori on the Tohoku Shinkansen

Figure1: Basic

Shinkansen

map

Different types of Shinkansen on display

Outcomes and impact of the project for passengers

We identified five outcomes with an impact for passengers using this part of the Shinkansen

network. First, as Figure 2 shows, there was a considerable increase in the number of passengers

carried between Hachinohe and Shin-Aomori stations: from 7 700 per day before operation to

9 500 per day after one year in operation.

Source: Pixabay

Source: JTTRI

EUU, Alm.del - 2018-19 (1. samling) - Bilag 471: Rapport fra Den Europæiske Revisionsret januar 2019

An ex-post evaluation of a Japanese high-speed rail project — Hachinohe to Shin-

Aomori on the Tohoku Shinkansen

Figure 2 - Average number of

Shinkansen

passengers between Hachinohe and Shin-Aomori

before operation

after 1 year operation

Second, comparing the situation in 2009 with that in 2013, there was a change in the modes of

public transportation used for major routes. [The share of rail travel to Aomori region from nearby

Miyagi region increased from 80% to 88%, while the share of expressway bus travel decreased

from 20% to 12%. For travel from the vicinity of Tokyo to Aomori region, the share taken by rail

increased from 68% to 73%, while that of air declined from 26% to 20% (see Table 1).] [Table 1

shows that there was a clear modal shift towards rail from expressway bus and air.]

Table 1 - Changes in public transport modes 2009-2013

Route

Miyagi to Aomori

region

Tokyo to Aomori

region

Train

from 80 to 88%

from 68 to 73%

% shift

Bus

from 20

to 12%

% shift

-8

From 26

to 20%

-6

Air

% shift

Source: JTTRI

A third outcome related to time savings. Journey times were cut by 52 minutes between Sendai

and Shin-Aomori (2 h 19 minutes ->1 h 27 minutes) and by 60 minutes from Tokyo to Shin-Aomori

(3 h 59 minutes ->2 h 59 minutes) (see also

Figure 3).

Figure 3 - Travel time between Tokyo and Shin-Aomori for each mode of transport

Tokyo to Shin-Aomori station

4,00

3,50

3,00

2,50

2,00

1,50

1,00

0,50

0,00

upgrade the train

Shinkansen +

Express

(before

operation)

Shinkansen

(275km/h) in

2010

Shinkansen

(300km/h) in

2011

Shinkansen

(320km/h) in

2014

Airplan

Source: JTTRI

10 000

9 000

8 000

7 000

6 000

5 000

4 000

3 000

2 000

1 000

9 500

700

EUU, Alm.del - 2018-19 (1. samling) - Bilag 471: Rapport fra Den Europæiske Revisionsret januar 2019

An ex-post evaluation of a Japanese high-speed rail project — Hachinohe to Shin-

Aomori on the Tohoku Shinkansen

A fourth outcome related to fare increases:

•

The fare between Sendai and Shin-Aomori went up from 10 670 yen to 11 520 yen

(+ 9.3%);

The fare between Sendai and Shin-Aomori went up from 16 890 yen to 17 350 yen

(+ 9.7%).

As the fifth and last outcome under this heading, we identified a substantial increase in the

number of people able to reach a given destination within a given timeframe. The population of

the catchment area within four hours of central Tokyo has risen from 500 000 to 1 110 000 people.

It can be concluded from the above that the Shinkansen project for this route could well stimulate

and revitalise the response and interaction of local populations

Evaluating impacts and influence on society as a whole

Where the regional economy is concerned, the non-resident population — those moving to the

region temporarily for work or study — increased by 30% for both Aomori and Miyagi regions. By

contrast, there was a 10% increase in the number of people moving from Aomori region to the

Tokyo metropolitan area (commuters).

We estimate the positive impact on the national economy to be worth 23.5 billion yen per year.

Local governments along the Shinkansen line are making efforts to increase visitor numbers and

tourist activities.

Lastly, we estimate the environmental impact, as far as CO2 and NOx emissions are concerned, to

be 26 000 tonnes/year and 100 tonnes/year respectively.

Effects of disaster prevention measures - experience from the Great East Japan

Earthquake

The Japanese archipelago is an earthquake-prone region. Thus, seismic design is a precondition

for all railway infrastructure projects. At the time of the Great East Japan Earthquake (a

9.0-magnitude quake) on 11 March 2011, 27 trains were operating on the Tohoku Shinkansen.

Fortunately, any catastrophe such as derailment or structural collapse was avoided, and no

passengers were injured by the earthquake.

We found that, despite the huge magnitude of the earthquake, the existence of disaster

prevention measures enabled operations to be promptly resumed in 49 days. Considering the

difficulty of predicting natural disasters, disaster prevention in design needs to be well balanced

between pursuing safety and increasing costs. On the basis of past experience and current

knowledge, we believe that proper design and construction are indispensable.

Evaluations to identify impact and improve future choices

After completion of a project such as this Shinkansen route, an ex-post evaluation is carried

out to examine whether the operations are appropriate and determine their multiple effects

for passengers, the economy, society as a whole and security. Moreover, to improve future

implementation and results, it is essential to leverage evaluation information in the form of

feedback for similar projects planned and executed elsewhere.

EUU, Alm.del - 2018-19 (1. samling) - Bilag 471: Rapport fra Den Europæiske Revisionsret januar 2019

Passing common-or-garden trees,

on a run-of-the-mill train

By Lisette van Erp and Werner van Hoof, train travellers

Arriving in Florence

Policy makers and project leaders may sometimes have a tendency to embellish

the achievements of investments in the transport sector. But how do users of

the different transport modes experience and value the possibilities offered.

We asked two ardent users of the ‘train mode,’ Lisette van Erp and Werner van

Hoof, EU citizens from the Netherlands and Belgium who are living in Antwerp,

to share some of their experiences. It turns out that having a passion, stamina

and financial means for and with trains are welcome features if you want to

travel by rail.

Inspired by a poem

The poem 'Bericht aan de reizigers' (Message to travellers) by Jan van Nijlen, chiselled in the

vaults of Antwerp Central Station, is the inspiration for a train trip to Rome. We would like to

experience how 'passing common-or-garden trees, a run-of-the mill train takes us to the heart

of Rome.'

We like to be on the move, but we also want to limit our CO2 emissions as much as possible.

Within Europe, trains are therefore our preferred choice. But you need to put in some extra efforts

if you want to travel by train, and it is also more costly.

On our way to Rome, we want to visit a number of places. We plan with an ample margin, setting

aside two weeks for the trip. During our search for trains, we soon end up with Interrail. There are

various formulas, of which the possibility to use the train during seven days within a time span of

one month was the most attractive to us.

Source: Lisette van Erp and Werner van Hoof

EUU, Alm.del - 2018-19 (1. samling) - Bilag 471: Rapport fra Den Europæiske Revisionsret januar 2019

Passing common-or-garden trees, on a run-of-the-mill train

The price of a train journey

We decide to buy a first class ticket. We pay €425 per person for the Railpass (price in second class

is €335). In some countries you are required to reserve a seat for some trains, such as high-speed

trains. On the first day we want to travel from Antwerp via Paris to Turin. The reservation fees for

first class appear to be €25 to Paris (€20 second class) and €89 per person (€62 second class) for

the Paris-Turin section. In the end, we therefore opted for a cheaper ride to Milan via Germany

and Switzerland.

Screenshot of some of the reservation fees

The reservation and booking fee for our entire trip eventually come to €127 per person. So you

can take the train to Rome and back for €552 per person. In Italy and Germany booking and

reservation fees are the same for first and second class. For second class the total amounts to

€462.

During our search on the railway website, a pop-up of an advertisement for an airline ticket to

Turin appears: €30 one way per person. With Ryanair you go back and forth to Rome for €48,

with Alitalia for €197 and with Brussels Airlines for €218. Tempting, but we persist with the train

option.

This situation applies however also to shorter distances. To travel to family and friends we often

use the international train from Antwerp in Belgium to the Netherlands. This train has become

considerably more expensive since the train authorities have decided that this journey needs to

go via Breda. Only if you book more than a week in advance is the extra charge still manageable.

If not, it is cheaper to rent a car via a shared car system. Not exactly ecologically responsible, so

we usually still choose the more expensive train.

We are lucky to be able to pay the extra cost for travelling by train. We would like to continue

to choose this option and try to keep our air and car journeys to a minimum. Yet it is true that

many cannot make such a choice, simply because it is too expensive. They prefer to travel on

a cheap plane ticket. Notwithstanding all the talk in favour of climate action in recent years, it

is surprising that, considering the related taxes, air travel continues to be subsidised, while the

costs for travelling by train are rising.

Taking the bike on the train

We like to take our bikes with us on our trips. We have often travelled with our bikes on the train,

even across borders. More often than not, however, places for bicycles are limited, or travel takes

an extra long time because a number of trains exclude bicycles.

This time we leave the bike at home. Setting up a train route in Europe, buying tickets for

people and bicycles and making the corresponding reservations is so complicated that only a

professional ticket office clerk in a large station can find his way around it. They usually have an

hour's work with it. Sometimes it is just not possible to make a reservation (as on the Eurostar to

Source: Lisette van Erp and Werner van Hoof

EUU, Alm.del - 2018-19 (1. samling) - Bilag 471: Rapport fra Den Europæiske Revisionsret januar 2019

Passing common-or-garden trees, on a run-of-the-mill train

London: ‘Come to Brussels-Midi and we will see if there is room for the bikes,’ was the answer on

the phone two months before departure).

On our next trip we want to cycle from Pau in southern France to Lisbon in Portugal. This time

we do not choose for the combination of train plus bike to Pau and back from Lisbon. We opt for

the bus. It is cheap, you can take bicycles along and the rules are the same in all countries. And,

being true to the poem of Jan van Nijlen, the ride also will be 'passing common-or-garden trees.'

Courtesy package received after the trip, if you have filled in the trip info

Source: Lisette van Erp and Werner van Hoof

EUU, Alm.del - 2018-19 (1. samling) - Bilag 471: Rapport fra Den Europæiske Revisionsret januar 2019

Identifying trends in transport audits

in the EU

By Di Hai, Private Office of Alex Brenninkmeijer, ECA Member

ECA team setting up the database on performance audits in transport.

From left to right: Nils Odins, Guido Fara, Di Hai and Marjeta Leskovar

What is the role for Supreme Audit Institutions (SAIs) in assessing their country’s

transport policies? Which is the most audited transport sector? What are these

audits about? What does a typical transport audit look like? To answer these

and other questions, a team of performance auditors at the ECA have taken

the initiative to set up a database of transport audits carried out by SAIs from

around the world. Di Hai, attaché in Alex Brenninkmeijer’s Private Office and

previously working as auditor in this area, explains what work has been going

into this project, that aims to spot and analyse trends in auditing transport

and mobility issues more quickly and to design new and innovative transport

audits at the ECA.

Imagining the audit landscape – assembling knowledge

Over 350 performance audit reports in the field of transport have been identified by our auditors

on the website of Supreme Audit Institutions (SAIs) of EU Member States (‘the database’) by the

end of 2018. Our search was restricted to publically available reports dated after 2005 only. The

number may be incomplete due to the limited access to information and linguistic constraints.

Nevertheless, the collection of these audit reports portrays a fair overview of the development of

transport performance audits in the EU over the last 15 years.

The database that the ECA’s auditors have collected exhibits the richness and popularity of audit

topics and is currently organised according to the country where the report originates from, the

year of publication, and the titles and/or the executive summaries of the report. The average

number of reports published by a national SAI per year ranges from one to three in the database,

with the United Kingdom, Czech Republic, France, and Poland being the most active Member

States in publishing in the field of transport. On the other hand, some SAIs rarely publish any

transport-related audit report due to - just to name a few factors - their relatively small size, outer

geographical location, alternative sources of funding and selective audit strategy, even though

these SAIs may have a significant impact on the functioning of the Trans-European Transport

Network (TEN-T).

EUU, Alm.del - 2018-19 (1. samling) - Bilag 471: Rapport fra Den Europæiske Revisionsret januar 2019

Identifying trends in transport audits in the EU

Overall, there is an increase in the total number of transport performance audits published per

year and especially since the outbreak of the financial crisis in 2008 a surge is notable. Moreover,

reports with similar audit topics may showcase different audit approach and criteria, whereas

reports with different audit topics may still have very comparable audit methodology and

components.

This also illustrates in what way our database differs from a similar EUROSAI project (see

Box 1)

Box 1 - EUROSAI database

EUROSAI has made public a similar database of SAIs’ audit reports on its website since 2015.

This database covers financial, compliance and performance reports in all sectors not limited

to transport alone. However, its information is based on the voluntary notification of the

reports by the SAIs themselves, and does not always include mixed forms of studies and

evaluations that could not be easily classified by the SAIs as performance audits according to

the INTOSAI standards and guidelines. Currently, there are around 54 reports available in the

EUROSAI database that relate to audit work in the transport sector.

Analysing the trend and fashion – finding inspiration

Around 40% of the reports collected in the ECA’s database relate to the main transport

infrastructure in the four transport modes described in the Commission’s policy papers, i.e. air,

water, road and rail (see

Figure 1).

The remaining 60% of the collected reports relate to the

overarching transport themes, i.e. intermodality, environment, pricing and taxation, public

transport, security and safety, maintenance, and management and governance. It should be

noted, however, that our classification of performance audit reports is based on the information

contained in the titles, subtitles and/or executives summaries of the reports in the database, and

that we did not undertake a more detailed analysis of the full content of the report.

Figure 1 – SAIs’ audits reports across various transport audit areas

Among the four transport modes, rail attracts the highest number of performance audit reports;

around 49% of collected reports relate to rail, compared to 28% for road, 19% for water, and 4%

for air.

Table 1

shows a list of audit topics within each audit area, and a check mark is added to

the topic if it has been the main audit subject of a performance audit published by the ECA. For

example, within the audit area of water, reports from SAIs have been found relating to waterways

and ports. Both topics have been dealt with by the ECA’s special reports 1/2015 and 23/2016,

respectively.

EUU, Alm.del - 2018-19 (1. samling) - Bilag 471: Rapport fra Den Europæiske Revisionsret januar 2019

Identifying trends in transport audits in the EU

Table 1 – Main audit topics within the transport areas of Air, Water, Road, and Rail

Among the overarching transport themes, management and governance attracts the highest

number of performance audit reports, namely around 44% of collected reports, compared to

17% for maintenance, 15% for security and safety, 14% for public transport, and less than 5%

for pricing and taxation, environment, and intermodality, respectively.

Table 2

shows a list of

audit topics within the three most popular audit areas based on the information contained in the

titles and/or executive summaries of the reports. Examples of reports in the area of management

and governance include public private partnerships (PPPs), as well as one-stop-shops for

environmental assessments and for fee collections. The latter topic has not yet been covered by

an ECA’s special report. Also the area of maintenance has not yet been subject to any exclusive

performance audit by the ECA.

Table 2 – Main audit topics within the transport areas of Management, Maintenance and

Security

EUU, Alm.del - 2018-19 (1. samling) - Bilag 471: Rapport fra Den Europæiske Revisionsret januar 2019

Identifying trends in transport audits in the EU

Designing new ECA audits – putting knowledge and inspiration into practice

Using the database as a source of knowledge and inspiration, a team of performance auditors

at the ECA could test their ideas against the trends in the work of other SAIs. One may observe

that, firstly, most SAIs have a strong favour for non-infrastructure related audits, or so-called

policy audits. Secondly, some topics are examined repeatedly in different Member States and

may require a closer look by the ECA at the EU level, whereas other topics are nationally bound

for which the knowledge and expertise of the ECA’s auditors would not add significant value and

instead would be better invested in EU-prone or cross-border topics. Thirdly, the incorporation

of some horizontal audit areas such as ‘the environment’ into transport audits deserves more

attention. Examples would be audit ideas such as ‘green transport’ or ‘implementing climate

change targets through transport policy’.

The comparison of audit topics across the EU also shows differences in audit strategies. Some

SAIs choose smaller scaled or focused audits, whereas other SAIs go for broader scaled or mixed

audits. Some SAIs follow national priority such as ensuring oversight and safety in the field of

transport, whereas other SAIs run systematic and balanced check-up of all government agencies

or programmes in the field of transport. The database therefore also provides food for thought

on the scale, the number, and the variety of performance audits in the field of transport that an

audit institution may wish to undertake, sometimes in cooperation with its peers.

Completing the learning cycle – building audits that matter

In the EU, transport is a shared competence of the Union and its Member States. The majority

of EU transport spending programmes is co-financed through the European Structural and

Investment Funds (ESIF) and administered under shared management by both the European

Commission and the national and regional authorities. This multilevel governance structure

implies that an important part of the ECA’s audit work on the programmes and policies takes

place in the Member States, while the same programmes and policies may also be scrutinised by

national or regional audit institutions.

Being the EU’s independent external auditor requires the ECA to build audits that matter. This is

so when the ECA could build on the work done by other SAIs in the Member States. Harnessing

the latest audit trend and fashion in transport audits in the EU is a way to improve exchange and

coordination between the work of the ECA and of the SAIs in the Member States. The learning

cycle of assembling knowledge, finding inspiration, and developing practice helps to select

relevant audit topics, to apply top-notch audit methods and to have maximum impact. And this

is what matters the most.

EUU, Alm.del - 2018-19 (1. samling) - Bilag 471: Rapport fra Den Europæiske Revisionsret januar 2019

Auditing motorway construction in the

Czech Republic – from the perspective

of a national SAI auditor

By Jiří Přikryl, Supreme Audit Office of the Czech Republic

Motorway in the Czech Republic

In Europe travelling by car remains popular. This requires the construction

and maintenance of an extensive road infrastructure, including motorways.

Jiří Přikryl, who heads the Transport Audit Unit of the Supreme Audit Office

of the Czech Republic, presents some key results of the audits done on road

construction in his country, and the role of benchmarking to put progress into

perspective.

Assessing motorway network development

In 2017 the Supreme Audit Office of the Czech Republic (SAO) finalised a comprehensive audit of

motorway network development in the Czech Republic. The main objectives of this audit were

to evaluate the implementation of government plans, to assess how construction of motorways

was prepared, to audit what the actual costs of construction have been, and whether six selected

motorway investment projects achieved their objectives at reasonable cost. The audit report,

‘Audit Conclusion 17/05’, was published in January 2018.

Ambitious planning

Our audit report on the motorway network starts by stating – not to the liking of the Czech

Ministry of Transport - that according to plans from the late 1990s the Czech motorway network

should have been completed in 2010. That was the plan. Of course, government plans are often

very ambitious and the economic situation and priorities can change, leading to extended

completion dates and an increase in construction costs. This was certainly the case in this area.

According to current government plans, the Czech motorway network, consisting of 19

motorways, should be completed by 2050, with a total length of 2 073 kilometres. The

following graph shows kilometres of motorways and expressways

put into operation each year.

Construction of motorways started in 1967 and the first sections were finished in 1971.

Source: Pixabay

EUU, Alm.del - 2018-19 (1. samling) - Bilag 471: Rapport fra Den Europæiske Revisionsret januar 2019

Auditing motorway construction in the Czech Republic – from the perspective

of a national SAI auditor

Figure 1 – Number of kilometres of motorways newly built in the Czech Republic in the

years 1971-2017

Source: Audit report No 17/05, Data: Road and Motorway Directorate of the Czech Republic

Figure 1

shows the number of kilometres of motorways newly built in the Czech Republic in

the years 1971-2017. This simple graph, showing, for example, that in the 2013–2017 period

covered by our audit only 16 kilometres of motorway on average were finished per year, caused

some serious media reaction. In our audit report the SAO also expresses a concern that in the

forthcoming years, 2018–2020, there is a strong possibility that this average will only rise to

17 kilometres per year. Under these circumstances, there is a risk that the remaining

833 kilometres of the desired network will not be finished by 2050. In January 2019 it became

known that in 2018 only 3.8 kilometres of new motorway had been finished. This again led the

media to question the ability of the government to implement its plan in this area as scheduled.

Preparatory phase causing major delays

The main reasons for such a slow pace of motorway construction were problems in the preparatory

phase – obtaining zoning and building permits, the environmental impact assessment (EIA) and

settlement of property rights (land expropriation). These issues – which may not be specific to

the Czech Republic – had already been discussed in a report we published five years ago (Audit

Conclusion 12/18). Between 2008 and 2012 the preparatory phase (from obtaining the EIA to

issuing a building permit) took nine years on average. The Czech Ministry of Transport then

adopted some measures to accelerate the preparation of motorways. However, five years later,

when we followed-up on that audit, the same phase already took an average of 13 years, with

extreme cases taking 20 years and more.

The slow progress in the preparatory phase was caused by repeated ‘attacks,’ appeals and protests

by citizens in the EIA, zoning and building proceedings. Czech law allows the same arguments to

be used in comments on the EIA and the permit documents. Nowadays the most effective way of

obstructing preparation of such projects is to challenge the exceptions obtained to laws for the

protection of specific plants and animal species (such as hamsters, frogs, crayfish, rare beetles,

etc.) that live (or may live) in the motorway corridor.

Another important cause is the unfinished settlement of property rights. In every motorway

construction project, issues with land or property owners were stalling construction. This was

because the building permit could only be issued once all the land had been successfully

appropriated from its previous owners. Problems arise when the owners are unknown, bankrupt,

dead, or when they do not agree with the price offered. Expropriation legislation was not

sufficiently effective and allowed the negotiations and court proceedings to take years. Much of

the motorway construction we examined in our audit was awaiting property rights settlement,

with 95–99 % of the land bought, but the missing 1 to 5% often taking years to solve.

1 Since 2016 most of the expressways were ‘re-marked’ as motorways

EUU, Alm.del - 2018-19 (1. samling) - Bilag 471: Rapport fra Den Europæiske Revisionsret januar 2019

Auditing motorway construction in the Czech Republic – from the perspective

of a national SAI auditor

Construction of the Říkovice - Přerov section of the D1 motorway

The construction of the Říkovice - Přerov section of the D1 motorway, for which the EIA was issued in

2000, could serve as an example of the problems described above. Seventeen years after launch, the

property settlement had still not been completed. In addition, due to the change in the shape of an

extra-level junction, in 2017 the Road and Motorway Directorate requested a change in the zoning

permit. However, this change required an exception to the laws on the protection of plants and animal

species. One of the parties appealed against the exception, leading to repeated postponements of

construction, which had been planned for 2018–2021. Another delay is most likely to occur, and work

is now scheduled to start at the end of 2019.

Benchmarking costs of motorway construction

On the positive side, our audit also showed that the cost of motorway construction is decreasing.

The construction of one kilometre of motorway cost an average of CZK 152 million (€6 million)

between 2013 and 2017. This is about CZK 190 million (€7.5 million) less than what it was built

for between 2008 and 2012, as can be read in our audit report published in 2013. This means a

cost reduction of over 55% in less than ten years. This situation was mainly brought about by

the participation of a higher number of bidders in the more recent public procurement process.

It has also led to recent claims that prices are too low and the bidders’ offers are on the edge of

profitability.

This was also one of the reasons why we turned to benchmarking - the average price of 1m

motorway construction was CZK 6 870 (€267), which was almost the same as the average price

in Germany, Greece, Poland, and Spain (e.g. amounting to CZK 6 883 (€268), as was reported

by the ECA in its special report 5/2013

Are EU Cohesion Policy funds well spent on roads?)

This

finding was rather reassuring: on the whole, construction prices had not been significantly over-

or underestimated.

Benchmarking construction time

We did not only compare prices. In the past, Poland was often presented in the Czech media as an

example of best practice with an admirable capacity to build, on average, 170 to 280 kilometres

of motorways/expressways per year. In the Czech Republic the rate was at best 10% of this. So,

in the context of cooperation between Supreme Audit Offices, the presidents of the SAO of the

Czech Republic and the SAI of Poland, NIK, arranged a study visit to Poland to provide further

insights for the Czech auditors.

The sheer numbers are truly impressive: in 2003, just before joining the EU, Poland had 631

kilometres of motorways/expressway, while the Czech Republic had 838. In 2017, 14 years later,

Poland already had 3 486 kilometres, i.e. an increase of 2 855 kilometres. In 2017 the Czech

Republic had 1 240 kilometres, i.e. an increase of 402 kilometres. Preparing a road investment

in Poland takes around five years. The basis for such success is mainly appropriate legislation

that integrates three separate administrative procedures (zoning permit, settlement of property

rights/land expropriation and the building permit) into one, with only one single decision

required to authorise the construction of a road.

Legislative impact of our audit

The presentation of our audit results has contributed to increased pressure for the adoption

of another amendment to the

Act on Accelerating the Construction of Transport Infrastructure,

effective from July 2018 onwards. To some extent, this amendment creates administrative

conditions for motorway construction that are quite similar to Poland’s. However, only time

will tell whether this change was sufficient to speed up the problematic preparatory phase and

substantially increase the number of kilometres of motorway built in the Czech Republic. And

this may require another audit by the SAO of the Czech Republic.

EUU, Alm.del - 2018-19 (1. samling) - Bilag 471: Rapport fra Den Europæiske Revisionsret januar 2019

Making the implementation of EU

transport and mobility policy happen –

the role of INEA

By Dirk Beckers, Executive Director of the Innovation and Networks Executive Agency

10 year anniversary celebration hosted by Dirk Beckers (second person from the right)

In 2018, the Innovation and Networks Executive Agency (INEA) celebrated

10 years of operations. It was an important moment for INEA to elaborate on its

work and to reflect on how it contributed to executing and supporting many

EU initiatives on mobility and transport. Dirk Beckers has not only been INEA’s

executive director since its official creation in January 2014, but has also been

in charge of setting up INEA’s predecessor, the TEN-T Executive Agency in 2008.

So he is well placed to explain the role of INEA when it comes to connecting

Europe in the different transport modes, the challenges that the EU needs to

address in this area, and how INEA intends to contribute to do so successfully.

10 year anniversary to look back…. and forward

Putting things into an historical perspective can be very rewarding. In 2008 we set-up the TEN-T

Executive Agency in 2008, managing the TEN-T programme (€8 billion for 2007-2013 period)

with 44 staff, quickly rising to 99. Then, in 2014, we became responsible for the management of

additional programmes, and our agencies became INEA. We employ now almost 300 staff who

are managing a budget of €33.6 billion, implementing parts of the Connecting Europe Facility

(CEF), Horizon 2020 (H2020), as well as the legacies of the TEN-T and Marco Polo II programmes .

Our 10 year anniversary was a great opportunity to take stock of the agency's achievements

and I am proud to have led our organisation since 2008 to where we are now. Our anniversary

was also a good moment to reflect on the challenges we face now and in the future. I think it

is fair to say that INEA has a track record of focusing on the delivery of tangible results, while

assuring the sound financial management of the delegated EU budget. This includes measuring

the performance and impact of the projects, as well as finding ways to increase visibility of the

programmes and encourage synergies.

The challenges faced by the Agency are linked to the implementation of the programmes.

While the European Commission defines the policy, strategy, objectives and priorities, INEA is

Source: INEA

EUU, Alm.del - 2018-19 (1. samling) - Bilag 471: Rapport fra Den Europæiske Revisionsret januar 2019

Making the implementation of EU transport and mobility policy happen – the role

of INEA

responsible for managing the projects throughout the entire grant management cycle – from

publishing the calls for proposals to the ex-post audits. In this process, our purpose is two-fold:

•

making sure that the EU budget is well spent; and

supporting both the European Commission and the participants in our programmes so

that their projects are most effective in bringing added-value to EU citizens.

Our successes: projects improving citizen's life

Our most important objective is to guarantee that the projects supported by the programmes that

we manage deliver on what they promised to achieve. This means supporting our participants

in our programmes virtually every day: alerting them of new funding opportunities, informing

them of the publicity obligations that they have to respect, advising them about which project

cost can be co-financed from the EU budget (and which not), inviting them to present their

projects at conferences and events organised by INEA or the European Commission and much

more. Everyone in INEA, from the project managers through to the people in logistics and HR, are

aware that it is only by working together and by developing and enacting strong procedures that

we can effectively support our project beneficiaries and of course the European Commission.

Another important aspect is the quality of INEA’s financial management, which is particularly

relevant for the ECA (but not only).The projects would not be able to deliver without INEA properly

managing the financial aspect of thousands of grant agreement. Our agency has demonstrated

its capacity to provide a stable and robust environment which allows to strike a good balance

between cost effective programme management and compliance with the financial rules. This

results in low rates of irregular spending , adequate time-to-pay and low costs of controls. A

good practice is the systematic presence of INEA's staff to the onsite meetings for project audits,

including those undertaken by the ECA. This definitely contributes to a better understanding of

the working methods in both directions,

helping us to improve our work.

Figure 1 - Some key financial performance indicators

The results of all our efforts are there to be seen. Many projects have come to conclusion

during the last 10 years, and citizens and businesses are already enjoying the benefits of better

infrastructure and innovative research, which delivers concrete results.

Our challenges: improving every day

Since 1 January 2014, when INEA came into being, we have signed 1 845 grants, almost all

within the prescribed time limit. We have recruited top talent from all over Europe to manage

our programmes and projects. We have organised events throughout Europe. We have audited

projects and, whenever necessary, recouped funds which were not properly justified to ensure

the sound financial management of our budget.

Yet, many challenges remain, in particular for the CEF programme, which by nature is composed

of large infrastructure projects. Such projects are usually long-term and their implementation

depends on a series of procedures governed at national level, which also must comply with the

applicable EU rules. These procedures (public procurements, expropriations, authorisations and

permits, including environmental ones) are often lengthy and may create delays, which, together

with cost overruns, result in serious deviations from the original planning. Despite the fact that

most of these factors are outside of INEA's control, we are committed to providing advice to

Source: INEA

EUU, Alm.del - 2018-19 (1. samling) - Bilag 471: Rapport fra Den Europæiske Revisionsret januar 2019

Making the implementation of EU transport and mobility policy happen – the role

of INEA

programme participants and helping them to achieve an effective and efficient execution of the

terms of the grant Agreement.

A key aspect is the establishment of a trust-based relationship with the participants, allowing

a continuous and close monitoring of the project and a 'reality check.' A concrete example of

this follow-up is the review halfway through the CEF Transport programme of a large portion of

supported projects, which was conducted in 2018. Based on the results, we are currently in the

process of agreeing with the participants the best way forward for the management of these

projects. This may also result in the release of funds currently reserved for certain projects, which

could then be used for the support of others, thus making a better use of the EU budget.

A further key challenge we are facing is the effective promotion of synergies between sectors and

also between programmes (mainly CEF and H2020). We do this by promoting a better leveraging

of EU funding and deployment of more effective use of previous research and innovation results .

With the support of the European Commission, we have been raising awareness of each

programme and its respective calls to the different stakeholders. As a result, the 2019 and 2020

H2020 work programmes make a greater reference to the CEF programme and we are expecting

to see an increasing number of technologies that have been developed in the EU research

programme featuring in proposals applying to CEF calls. In addition, the agency is fostering

synergies between the three sectors of the CEF programme by promoting transport, energy and

digital connectivity. I hope this will also positively impact the way the next multiannual financial

framework (MFF) is being designed.

The ECA has shown a consistent interest in the activities of INEA, in particular in the transport

sector. Currently several performance audits are ongoing, which concern programmes managed

by INEA or the agency itself. We are witnessing a progressive shift from compliance to performance,

which can be seen in the ECA's increased attention to the EU added value of spending. Examples

are the recent audits on high speed rail, EU research and innovation for climate and energy,

deployment of Single European Sky ATM Research, the EU transport flagship projects, road

transport and urban mobility. These audits (some of which are currently still ongoing) target

whether the life of European citizens will be improved when the projects are completed. I believe

that their results will offer us the opportunity to further improve our efficiency and effectiveness

at INEA.

Wherever possible, we aim at implementing ECA recommendations, which help to improve our

working methods as swiftly as possible .

Another instrumental tool to assess the results of our projects are performance indicators, which

are helping to ensure better spending, increased accountability and transparency. INEA has been

very active in this field and notably assessed CEF indicators and proposed improvements, which

are now the basis for preparing a future performance framework for the 2021-2027 programming

period. Although it is crucial that we are able to measure the direct output of EU funded projects,

it is also important to consider what overall impact programmes like the CEF are having, for

example on economic growth or the environment.

Source: INEA

EUU, Alm.del - 2018-19 (1. samling) - Bilag 471: Rapport fra Den Europæiske Revisionsret januar 2019

Making the implementation of EU transport and mobility policy happen – the role

of INEA

A project success: the Brenner Base Tunnel

The Brenner Base Tunnel (BBT) is the centrepiece of the railway upgrade from Munich to Verona on the

Scandinavian-Mediterranean corridor reaching from Finland and Sweden in the North to Malta in the

South. The overall project aims at building a 55 km rail tunnel between Innsbruck (Austria) and Fortezza

(Italy) that will remove a major bottleneck for both freight and passenger transit traffic. Together with

the Innsbruck bypass, it will be the longest rail tunnel in the world (64 km) and will enable heavier

and longer trains to operate on the line. Once completed, the traffic throughput can increase from the

current 240 trains per day to 591. By removing this transalpine bottleneck, travel time will decrease

and traffic will be shifted from road to rail. The trip from Innsbruck to Fortezza takes 80 minutes today:

through the BBT it will take only 25 minutes .

The BBT is being financed to a large extent by the EU. Since 2005 the EU contribution amounts to €1.6

billion, including the co-financing of works/studies until 2020. The tunnel is foreseen to start operations

in 2027.

The BBT has been subject to several audits conducted by the ECA, such as the audit on the high speed rail

network, where the ECA highlighted the difficulties in realising major cross-border infrastructure projects.

The future for INEA

The efficient deployment of smart solutions for transport, energy and ICT is one of the main

EU priorities and INEA has a central role to play in successfully achieving these objectives on

the ground, through its funding of research, of innovative solutions and of the deployment of

infrastructure. I am convinced that despite the numerous challenges INEA is facing, , we are well

equipped to respond to the needs of various stakeholders and continue to deliver excellence for

all its stakeholders, also thanks to the professionalism and dedication of all its staff.

An important aspect will remain our relationship with the ECA, which I am sure will be as fruitful

in the future as it has been in the past. In the 10 years from 2008 to 2018, 99 of INEA's projects

have been examined in the context of the annual Statement of Assurance (SoA) exercise, where

the auditors mainly look at the compliance with rules. In 2017, one third of the audited projects

were without observations. INEA has also been the auditee in eighteen performance audits on

the implementation of the programmes it manages. We are now looking forward to the results

of the current audit which has as main audit question 'Does the EU Innovation and Networks

Executive Agency’s management of EU programmes optimise their implementation?' and to

explore together with the ECA ways to further improve our work.

Source: INEA

EUU, Alm.del - 2018-19 (1. samling) - Bilag 471: Rapport fra Den Europæiske Revisionsret januar 2019

Europe goes into space: looking

back on what has happened since

the ECA audited the ‘Galileo’

programme 10 years ago

By Els Brems, Sustainable Use of Natural Resources Directorate,

and Olivier Côme, European Space Agency

Lift-off for four Galileo satellites on 25 July 2018 from Europe’s spaceport in French Guiana atop an

Ariane 5 launcher.

Since the 1990’s, the European Union has been developing its own global

navigation satellite system (GNSS). It is called ‘Galileo’, it is one of the flagship

space programmes of the EU and the European counterpart of the USA’s Global

Positioning System (GPS). This programme is clearly a strategic investment for

the EU, given the importance of high-precision positioning services in many

sectors of our economy. Els Brems and Olivier Côme explain what the Galileo

programme is about and how an audit done by the ECA in 2009 helped to

move the Galileo programme forward. Olivier Côme participated in this audit

and currently works as head of the EU Administrative Service Division in the

European Space Agency and, in that capacity, remains familiar with the financial

management issues relating to Galileo (mainly its procurement activities related

to infrastructure). Els Brems was the head of task for the ECA audit on Galileo.

She currently works in the Sustainable Use of Natural Resources Directorate at

the ECA where she is senior auditor.

Why Galileo ?

When the Galileo programme was initiated, the original idea was to create a (primarily) civilian

equivalent of the US-based Global Positioning System (GPS) or the Russian GLONASS system,

so that Europe would be autonomous. Named after the Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei it was

to be an independent high-precision system and the use of its basic services would be free and

open to everyone. Precise positioning is deeply woven into the fabric of our daily lives (just think

of the navigation systems in our cars and mobile phones) and has become essential for a large

number of economic sectors and fields of application (see

Box 1).

Galileo is intended to provide

better positioning services than its competitors at higher latitudes and, in combination with US

and Russian satellites will provide metre-scale positioning accuracy almost anywhere on earth.

Source/copyright: ESA/CNES/Arianespace/Optique video du CSG

EUU, Alm.del - 2018-19 (1. samling) - Bilag 471: Rapport fra Den Europæiske Revisionsret januar 2019

Europe goes into space: looking back on what has happened since the ECA audited

the ‘Galileo’ programme 10 years ago

Box 1 - Importance of GNSS and Galileo in various fields

Navigation services,

including

- Road traffic surveillance and improved traffic safety with the European eCall distress service

- The rail sector, supporting the train driver advisory service;

- International maritime navigation aid; improving maritime safety by contributing to

worldwide Search&Rescue service (SAR);

- Precision farming - high precision navigation service (free of charge).

Pending international harmonisation and certification, Galileo is not yet fully integrated

into aviation navigation and surveillance. Currently, the European Geostationary Navigation

Overlay Service (EGNOS) is used for air traffic management. By augmenting the existing GPS

signals, it offers enhanced vertical precision and integrity of the signal, allowing pilots to rely

on it for a safe approach.

Land surveying

– particularly useful in conjunction with Copernicus earth observation

programme; greater numbers of satellites and frequencies means greater accuracy

Civil protection

– particularly useful in disturbed environments (disaster areas), again in

combination with Copernicus

Encrypted service for sensitive information

(public authorities, the military)

Social networks and games

Fitness, sport and activity tracking

By increasing the number of satellites and frequencies available Galileo will provide a better

service for users, particularly where signal reception has been poor, and greatly increase the

EU’s strategic autonomy.

Source: EPRS; Galileo Satellite Navigation System: Space applications on earth;

Scientific Foresight Unit (STOA); October 2018

Where are we now with Galileo?

The European Commission officially made a ‘Declaration of Initial Services’ on 15 December 2016,

which marked the start of the Galileo exploitation phase. Since then, and after an extensive

testing period with 26 satellites in orbit and their supporting ground infrastructure, Galileo has

been offering three services:

• Open Service: a free mass-market service for positioning, navigation and timing;

• Public Regulated Service for government-authorised users;

• Search and Rescue Service, which is Europe’s contribution to the international distress beacon

locating organisation COSPAS-SARSAT.

The deployment phase is expected to be complete in 2020, when Galileo’s space segment will

include a total of 30 satellites (including 6 spare ones).

EUU, Alm.del - 2018-19 (1. samling) - Bilag 471: Rapport fra Den Europæiske Revisionsret januar 2019

Europe goes into space: looking back on what has happened since the ECA audited

the ‘Galileo’ programme 10 years ago

Equally important, deployment of Galileo’s

complex and large ground segment continues

to be further expanded in accordance with

strict performance standards, with stringent

security requirements and constant system

upgrades (for business continuity, operability

improvements and further robustness ). The

ground infrastructure includes sensor stations

worldwide, two control centres, Mission Uplink

stations, and Telemetry, Tracking and Command

stations.

Lifting satellites up to the top of the Ariane 5

launcher ahead of their launch on 25 July 2018

Galileo ground station on Jan Mayen Island in the Norwegian Arctic with protective 'radome' housing.

The site houses a Galileo Sensor Station plus satellite link to pass data back to the Galileo ground system.

Box 2 - Some key financial data

According to a 2018 European Parliamentary Research Service study (STOA - October 2018),

Galileo is expected to have a calculated cumulative value of approximately €130 billion in

the period of 2014-20134 (together with the geo-stationary satellite-based augmentation

system EGNOS. Immediate direct benefits are expected for the space industry as well as

downstream markets for GNSS-based applications and services. On the other hand, according

to this same study, total Galileo-related budget commitments (including Horizon 2020

research expenditure and EGNOS) from the early 1990s until 2020 are estimated to amount to

approximately €16 billion.

Source/copyright:

ESA/Fermin Alvarez Lopez

Source/copyright: ESA/CNES/Arianespace/Optique

Video du CSG – P Baudon

For the time after 2020, industrial work on the next

batch of satellites is already well underway, with

additional satellites in production and a series of

launch events expected in 2021/2022. Industrial

procurement is also currently being organised

for what are known as transition satellites, which

will pave the way for the second generation of

Galileo satellites in the next decade.

EUU, Alm.del - 2018-19 (1. samling) - Bilag 471: Rapport fra Den Europæiske Revisionsret januar 2019

Europe goes into space: looking back on what has happened since the ECA audited

the ‘Galileo’ programme 10 years ago

Is Galileo already being used?

Anyone with a Galileo-enabled device is now able to use signals provided by Galileo's global

satellite constellation. Signals are highly accurate, but not available all the time. This is why

Galileo signals are used in combination with other navigation systems (like GPS) during this

initial phase. The upcoming satellites will enlarge the Galileo constellation and will gradually

improve its signal availability worldwide.

Galileo's global ground segment, situation March 2018.

Since the Commission’s initial service declaration, we have seen several developments showing

that Galileo is recognised in the market of GNSS receivers. To give a few examples. In September

2017, Apple introduced its new Iphone 8, 8 Plus and 10/X, which are equipped worldwide to

receive Galileo signals. It joined Samsung, Sony, Huawei, BQ and other smartphone devices

which are already compatible with Galileo. Since 2018, a Galileo-enabled device has also been

built into every new car sold in Europe, thus enabling the eCall emergency response system.

Today, we also have information that all major GNSS receiver chips support Galileo. Considering

all this, one can conclude that Galileo has reached the mass market of location-based services.

Galileo (coupled with GPS) is de facto a standard for dual frequency applications functioning

with both signals.

Why did the ECA look into Galileo?

When we audited Galileo in 2007-2008, the programme was only in its development and

validation phase, already suffering from delays and cost overruns. It was the first EU space

programme and a key area of concern was the set-up for managing the programme. For our

team it was a challenging task involving audit work at the European Space Agency (ESA), the

Galileo Joint Undertaking, the Commission and the private sector (space industry).

The ECA performance audit helped decision-makers to envisage alternative solutions to those

available in 2007. Quite soon after the start of our audit, it became clear that the programme

needed a significant and rapid re-orientation. There were two main issues:

•

first, the Galileo concession project was simply not progressing, with industry not accepting

(or not being in a position to accept) the risks associated with the future deployment of the

Galileo system;

second, the early ‘political’ creation of an industrial consortium, which regrouped the main

European space companies at that time, prevented competition for the space segment

contract (at least for the first four in-orbit validation satellites). The main problem was

that de facto the consortium had no contractual leverage on its suppliers, which were its

shareholders and commercial partners. This contributed to the cost and schedule overruns.

•

Source/copyright: ESA

EUU, Alm.del - 2018-19 (1. samling) - Bilag 471: Rapport fra Den Europæiske Revisionsret januar 2019

Europe goes into space: looking back on what has happened since the ECA audited

the ‘Galileo’ programme 10 years ago

Already during our audit, in 2007, the concession negotiations for a public private partnership

(PPP) to carry out the programme had failed and subsequently the programme was reorganised.

The European Commission opted to use public procurement for the Galileo infrastructure

through ESA. In parallel ESA decided to terminate the existing contract with this industrial

consortium and to take it over by novation – replacing the failing industrial consortium in its

rights and obligations in its entirety. For the phase of full operational capability deployment, the

opportunity of new contracts - attributed by batches - helped to restore competition, notably in

the Galileo space segment.

Retrospectively, it is fair to say that the choice to re-orient the programme by abandoning

the Galileo concession project and opting instead for public procurement of the necessary

infrastructure was essential to secure full and successful deployment of the Galileo system.

The ECA audit helped to identify significant shortcomings in the initial phase of the programme.

It also offered a number of lessons for similar programmes in the future:

•

the strategic importance of robust programme governance;

the inherent shortcomings of a concession scheme to implement programmes like Galileo;

the fragility of an ad hoc entity (such as the Galileo Joint Undertaking) with no prior experience

in the industry and with limited capacity to impose its authority;

the necessity of establishing a solid programme manager with resources and expertise

which are commensurate with its tasks and which can also rely on appropriate cooperation/

delegation schemes with its partners;

the limits of using grant agreements (in this case Ten-T) as instruments to fund such

infrastructure deployment.

•

The ECA also identified a number of issues to be considered for the strategic positioning of the

Galileo system in respect of its potential market uptake.

Despite, or perhaps even because of, its findings and recommendations, the ECA’s special report

on Galileo was well received and acknowledged by public and private stakeholders when it was

published in 2009. Since then, it has taken another ten years to make Galileo operational, clearly

more than planned but some people thought it would never fly at all. Hopefully, soon all EU

citizens will be able to benefit fully from the services made possible by EU funds, which will

improve and increase connectivity and safety. Data will be essential for further digitalisation in

the future, and not only in transport.

More audits on the EU’s space programmes in the pipeline

Since 2009, the ECA has published no further reports on the performance of the EU’s space

programmes. However, the ECA’s 2019 work programme lists two such space-related audits

([add hyperlink ]. One is about the EU’s space assets. This may also shed further light on the

current status and management of the Galileo programme. Another audit is about the use of

new technologies (such as earth observation data) for monitoring agriculture. This also concerns

another EU flagship space programme, named Copernicus, which focuses on earth observation

and currently has seven dedicated satellites in orbit. And there are many other potential topics

for future ECA audits in this sector, as these space programmes will inevitably become a key

aspect in a range of EU policies.

EUU, Alm.del - 2018-19 (1. samling) - Bilag 471: Rapport fra Den Europæiske Revisionsret januar 2019

EIB leveraging finance to connect Europe

through cleaner, smarter and

safer mobility

By Stéphane Petti, European Investment Bank

Charging Station

The importance the European Investment Bank (EIB) attaches to the transport

sector is reflected in the multiple financing facilities set up by the Bank that

provide investments for connecting Europe. In early February 2019, the Bank

announced having invested over €1 billion through the Juncker Plan, supporting

sustainable transport in Europe. Stéphane Petti, transport innovation expert in

the EIB Mobility Department, explains what the key drivers and actions of the

Bank are…and which distinguish the EIB from many other banks.

Innovative transportation solutions condition for a connected and sustainable Europe in

the future

When most of us think what transport might be like in the future, we see perhaps a futuristic,

science fiction type world of flying vehicles, super high speed trains travelling faster than

airplanes, and perhaps even teleportation. A world where human beings no longer have to drive,

and where the use of petrol as a fuel seems like a distant memory. A world of safe, hassle-free and

comfortable mobility for all.

Whether you subscribe to that vision or not, the transport business is taking its first tentative

steps towards making it a reality. There is a huge variety of new technology being deployed in

sectors such as energy, information, communication and robotics, and these are now becoming

part of the new world transport. They offer a fantastic opportunity to provide new ways of being

mobile and are profoundly transforming the sector.

Not a single month goes by without there being press releases from automotive manufacturers

about future production plans for electric or self-driving vehicles. Governments are queuing

up with plans to ban petrol and diesel cars in city centres. New companies and projects are

emerging that propose alternative mobility models complementing private vehicles ownership

and conventional use of public transport.

Source: Greenway

EUU, Alm.del - 2018-19 (1. samling) - Bilag 471: Rapport fra Den Europæiske Revisionsret januar 2019

EIB leveraging finance to connect Europe through cleaner, smarter and

safer mobility

Transport has played a fundamental role in the development of Europe as we know it today.

The political geography and history of Europe makes it a uniquely fragmented continent,

which has meant the Member States having to work together to develop integrated transport

networks, such as the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T), and ensure the requisite level

of connectivity, for example through the Connecting Europe Facility

CEF).

Transport has a major role in ensuring economic growth and prosperity and has been a very

important sector for the European Investment Bank (EIB), representing on average about 20%

of the Bank’s overall annual lending in the last ten years. However, with current technology and

growing demand, transport does have a cost to society. It creates vast amounts of greenhouse gas

emissions, and air pollution kills an estimated 7 million people worldwide every year according

to the World Health Organisation (WHO). Furthermore, about 1.3 million people are killed each

year in road traffic accidents

In this context, the EIB’s core mission in transport is twofold:

•

to strengthen connectivity of goods and people in Europe through deployment and

rehabilitation of physical networks and infrastructure;

to be instrumental in transforming the sector towards more sustainable transport.

EIB’s approach with respect to supporting this transformation is to identify new ideas and

technologies, and support projects, that will most effectively mitigate transport’s wider global

impacts.

Cleaner, Smarter, Safer mobility, for all…

CLEANER, SMARTER, SAFER

is the Bank’s approach

to current developments

and future trends in the

transport sector.

CLEANER

transport is any

technology deployed on

vehicles or infrastructure

that supports a reduction in

carbon and other emission

types.

Decarbonisation

and pollutant emissions

reduction is a principal

EU priority reflected in

an increasing number

Charging Plaza

of EU regulations. The

decarbonisation of transport is a key part of achieving the targets set out in the Paris Climate

Agreement, while reducing the volume of air pollutants is fundamental for improving the quality

of our air. The transition to a low carbon and cleaner economy will require significant investment

in new technology deployment and new types of infrastructure, estimated to amount to above

€650 billion per year for the vehicle stock only during the period 2011-2030

In the context of cleaner and alternative fuels technology, the Bank launched the Cleaner

Transport Facility (CTF) together with the European Commission in December 2016. This is an

umbrella initiative primarily to support the deployment of alternative fuel vehicles and their

associated infrastructure, such as charging stations. With an initial focus on public transport, the

CTF has now had twenty operations since its launch including investments in cleaner vehicles

fleet or electric vehicles charging infrastructure, representing EIB financing of about €1.8 billion.

There is now a need to accelerate the rate at which cleaner transport technologies are deployed

across other transport modes, particularly shipping and aviation.

SMARTER

transport projects are those digitally enabled and innovative services that help to

make the transport of people and goods more efficient. Digital technology based on collecting,

analysing and sharing data is becoming increasingly pivotal across all aspects of transport. As

the European Council underlined in its

conclusions of 5 December 2017

these new solutions,

1 https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/road-traffic-injuries

2 https://ec.europa.eu/info/sites/info/files/file_import/ip041_en_2.pdf

Source: Allego BV

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EIB leveraging finance to connect Europe through cleaner, smarter and

safer mobility

services and processes are simply of ‘vital importance for the European economy.’ The Bank is

already engaged in the financing and development of smarter transport projects, which might be

either standalone projects, such as electronic tolling, or a component part of larger infrastructure

projects, like the European Rail Traffic Management System.

SAFER

transport in all respects is also a key priority for the EU. The Bank is already very active

in promoting and supporting the most pressing aspect of it, Road Safety. However, a new

technology dimension is starting to play an increasing role, as automation and the development

of connected and automated vehicles (CAVs) suggests substantial safety benefits, not only in

road transport but also across other modes of transport. Automation and advancements in areas

such as drones are considered both smart and safe, as sophisticated and more reliable forms of

automated control replace the human error element of transport.

Future evolution of EIB transport financing

The Bank is aiming to support

the Cleaner, Smarter and Safer

transport projects that will

have the greatest impact and

contribution to Europe and the

wider world.

Some of those developments

that we think have a good chance

include truck platooning, in

which a group (platoon) of trucks

follow a lead truck at very short

spacing (~10 cm) using cutting

edge vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V)

communication technology. The

early pilot implementations are

Autonomous electric shuttle

suggesting promising results.

Truck platooning can reduce the number of accidents substantially owing to the autonomous

driving technology while it is also possible to achieve substantial fuel economy. The deployment

of cooperative Intelligent Transport Systems (C-ITS) infrastructure enabled by the advancements

in communications technologies, should develop alongside and allow cooperation between

vehicles and roads for safer journeys.

We also expect to see the deployment of autonomous vehicle fleets, last mile public transport

shuttle service operating between neighbourhoods and public transport stations. Recent

advancements in autonomous driving technologies coupled with public transport labour costs

and high volatility in public transport demand, suggest automated shuttles as a promising

solution to the

last mile

problem of passenger transport with a potential to reduce substantially

traffic in city centres.

Finally, in a world where the cities are dominated by cars, mobility needs to be more inclusive.

Digitalisation is triggering new mobility services that help to make a better use of public space.

Relying on a digital platform employing sophisticated matching, dispatching and routing

algorithms, new urban mobility services (such as car sharing or ride hailing) are emerging as

alternative business models. Further efforts in opening transport data and information, and

deliver it through user-friendly interfaces, mobile phone applications or information systems, will

enable travellers to make smarter choices about using transport networks. Mobility as a Service

(MaaS) is a good example of how a user-centric approach can be implemented in transport and

public transport particularly. We expect to see development in these areas as well.

Future transport for all

The history of transport has been largely one of technological innovation, and it is now

increasingly advanced and sophisticated, faster and more connected than ever. Travel time

has decreased while accessibility has increased. The future of transportation goes beyond

technology and self-driving cars, and our collective challenge is to increase mobility for all whilst

simultaneously addressing today’s societal needs. It is not enough for transport to be digital,

cleaner or autonomous – it needs to be all three to make a lasting difference.

Source: Navya

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EU transport safety and the Morandi

Bridge collapse - an admonishment

By Christian Verzè, private office of ECA Member Oscar Herics

The Morandi Bridge collapse in Genoa

On 14 August 2018 a lightning struck a pillar of an old 1960s highway bridge

in the Italian city of Genoa. Parts of the bridge collapsed on top of the fluvial

and industrial area it overlooked killing 43 people and injuring many more.

The disaster has ignited intense debate on transport safety in the EU and

infrastructure maintenance, or the lack thereof, in particular. Christian Verzè

analyses the events leading up to this tragedy and explains some of the safety

requirements of the modern-day EU transport regulations.

Disaster struck

The collapse of the Morandi bridge in Genoa

(named after the engineer Riccardo Morandi)

filled the international headlines in August and

September 2018. The worst of it all … the loss of

life could have been avoided. Falling from more

than 40 meters down onto a dry riverbed, rail

tracks and small streets below, 43 people lost

their lives and were found among rubble and

skeletons of ruined cars and slabs of concrete

cement, while the area affected became a ’red

zone.’ The 560 people living there were forced to

leave their homes.

At this stage it is still unclear who bears the

responsibility for the collapse and what caused

it. Looking at the facts, this bridge, nicknamed by

the citizens of Genoa as their very own ‘Brooklyn

Bridge,’ was not conceived for today’s heavy

traffic. Moreover, it was built using, as is seen now,

outdated designs and techniques. Already within

a decade after its completion in 1967, Morandi

himself highlighted that the sea breeze and the

corrosive fumes of nearby steel mills were causing

serious damage to the bridge’s building blocks.

Italian newspaper welcoming the Morandi

bridge as a solution for traffic problems

The cover page of Domenica del Corriere of 1 March 1964

Source: Pixabay

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EU transport safety and the Morandi Bridge collapse - an admonishment

Corroding elements of the Morandi bridge before the collapse.

However, there is more to it. Soon after its completion, the structures of the deck began to

flex, ending up having a wavy conformation, which, although near the sea, clearly was not the

initial intention. Many experts considered these weaknesses as deriving from the heavy use

of armoured cement, which, at the time of construction, was known for its plasticity and low

construction costs. However, a major problem of the material is that it is easily eroded and, if no

regular maintenance is provided, it can crumble by its own weight and structural flaws.

Who is to blame?

Although the exact causes of the collapse of the Morandi Bridge are still to be determined, the

information available points at a combination of structural weaknesses, political ineptness and

managerial greed that presumably led to a lack of maintenance. The most pressing questions,

of who bears the final responsibility, and if it could have been avoided or not, have not been

answered yet. The difficulty here lies in the fact that Morandi Bridge was part of a national highway,

thus owned by the State, but that a managing authority had been contracted to operate it.

This raises the question of the safety of other, similar infrastructure. This issue becomes even

more pressing since once shiny and ‘avant-garde’ infrastructures increasingly become old and

decaying. This happens not only in Italy, but also in many other EU Member States alike. So, how

is the situation regulated with regard to EU Transport infrastructures?

The EU transport network

The TEN-T Regulation establishes the EU legal framework for the Trans-European Networks (TENs)

which provides the tools for building the EU transport infrastructure. The regulation foresees to

build a core network, as well as the development of a secondary comprehensive network. The

transport policy contributes to the achievement of other and major EU objectives and towards the

development of a competitive and resource efficient transport system, supporting the smooth

functioning of the internal market and the strengthening of economic, social and territorial

cohesion. The idea is that an improved transport infrastructure will increase the accessibility for

both European citizens and businesses across the Union.

There is however one important catch: time. The regulation states that the core network should

be completed in 2030, and the comprehensive network in 2050. In order to achieve these results,

the EU has provided co-funding to support Member States’ infrastructure investments by way

of structural funds and the more recent instrument called the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF).

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Source: Pixabay

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EU transport safety and the Morandi Bridge collapse - an admonishment

Safety is key

The TEN-T and CEF policies have key features in terms of security and safety of passengers, and

of environmental protection. When establishing new infrastructure, Member States must take all

the necessary measures to ensure that the projects are carried out in compliance with relevant

EU regulations and national law. Particular attention should be given to, e.g., the environment,

safety, and public procurement. The general framework, priorities and objectives of the EU

transport policy, as well as who deals with what, are clear. Completing the network on time is

the main priority, but maintaining the quality of infrastructure already in place is also essential.

The collapse of the Genoa bridge shows that there still is a lot of room for improvement when it

comes to enforcing the conditions regarding safety and maintenance that are set by the TEN –T

and CEF regulations, despite the legal safeguards established by the EU. And while travelling in

Europe has never been so easy, the EU and its Member States should be extremely cautious of

any risk and take the safety of citizens as the outmost priority. The tragic history of the Morandi

Bridge highlights the importance of investing both sufficient time and money, not only in the

construction of new and prestigious projects, but especially also in the maintenance of transport

infrastructures built in the EU.

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Researching transport issues for the

parliament –the work of the EPRS and

how it uses the ECA reports

Interview with Sarah Sheil,

European Parliamentary Research Service

By Derek Meijers and Gaston Moonen

The European Parliamentary Research Service (EPRS)

was created in 2014 to meet the need of a bigger

source of in-house expertise for the Members of the

European Parliament (MEPs). With its staff of around

330, it is one of the largest parliamentary research

services in the world, second only to that of the US

Congress. An interview with Sarah Sheil, head of the

Structural policies unit in EPRS, to find out how the

service supports MEPs’ parliamentary work and how

they make use of ECA reports.

Sarah Sheil

Addressing MEPs’ information needs

Sketching the outline of the European Parliamentary

Research Service (EPRS), Sarah Sheil explains its work

is very much driven not only by the parliamentary and

legislative agenda, but also by the needs of the individual

MEPs. ‘EPRS offers a number of services specifically

targeted to the EP committees or to the individual MEPs.

For the latter, we are able to provide input to them on a

customised basis. Whether they need to attend an event

in their Member State, prepare for a plenary session, or

simply dig further into one specific topic or the other,

the EPRS can provide them with made-to-measure

information,’ says Sarah. And: ‘In addition, of course, we

pro-actively publish reports, notes and infographics on

various topics, as well as background information relating

to ongoing legislative and budgetary procedures. The

bulk of our work is publicly available on the EPRS’s website

and via the EPRS app’.

Sarah emphasises that the service is free to be creative

Screenshot of the App, offered by the

and to initiate briefings or other products on trending

EPRS, by which many EPRS products

issues that are in the interest of the wider parliamentary

become easily available. Source: EPRS

community. It also produces regular series of briefings on

issues such as individual budgetary programmes, EU trade

... we do not assume

agreements or legislative files. ‘When drafting our public

that our readers are

briefings, we do not assume that our readers are specialists. So

specialists.[...] we prepare

when we prepare information material, we aim at setting the

information [...] in order to

scene and providing the essential background information, in

ensure its usefulness for a

order to ensure its usefulness for a large audience.’ She adds to

large audience.

this that many of the individual information requests of MEPs

is related to spending. Laughing: ‘And as our unit covers policies such as cohesion policy and

agriculture policy that represent almost 70% of the EU budget, we get to answer the bulk of

those questions!’

“

The right information at the right time

Sarah explains that since most of the work of the Members’ Research Service is focussed at the

information requests of individual MEPs, a key challenge is to find the data which answers their

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Interview with Sarah Sheil, European Parliamentary Research Service

specific needs, and also to present it in a user friendly way.

... we do not assume

‘We get to know our customers over the course of a five-year

that our readers are

term, but with the upcoming elections in May we will have to

specialists.[...] we prepare

start with a new client base. Fortunately, our statistics show

information [...] in order to

that more than 93% of all MEPs, from all parts of the political

ensure its usefulness for a

spectrum, have used our services during the past legislative

large audience.

period. I think that clearly shows our work is appreciated across

the board and that the MEPs value our products.’ Sarah adds it requires trust to achieve such

uptake. ‘For us, it is essential to provide impartial and objective research of high quality.’

“

Compared with the ECA, whose audits are in general backward looking, assessing policies,

programmes or measures that generally have already been implemented, the EPRS also has to

be forward looking , in order to provide the MEPs with the research input and evidence to base

their decisions on. Sarah: ‘Our philosophy is that the legislative process - or policy cycle - is indeed

a cycle. That means that we really have to be active at several stages simultaneously.’ She explains

that, sometimes it can be hard to say where the preparatory work ends and the legislative work

begins. Or where the legislative work ends and the evaluation stage begins. ‘But we aim to support

Members and committees at all stages of the cycle. We are active both upstream, so to be ready

when the legislative process begins, and we work downstream at the same time, to be able to

contribute to the impact assessments and the evaluation of the legislative process later on.

The EPRS and the ECA

According to Sarah, ECA reports often

provide input for the EPRS’s work, for

example the recent landscape review on

transport and mobility. Sarah: ‘They are a

valued source of information, and apart

from the overview such reports provide,

they are useful for our researchers

because they focus on aspects that are

or are not working well, and serving as

a signpost for good and bad practices.’

She adds: ‘Obviously, MEPs need to be

aware of those shortcomings, what has

been done already to address them,

which questions have been raised and

Photographer: Christian CREUTZ. Ref. EP-072418C

examined in the past, etcetera, to be

able to substantiate their legislative proposals. Our briefings usually contain references to other

sources, including ECA reports, and set out the main conclusions of these studies.’

In this context, Sarah underlines that here it is important to keep in mind that the MEPs often are

not experts on each issue and that they are not necessarily familiar with the ins and outs of a certain

policy area. ‘They cannot be aware of all the inherent problems of a certain area, because, due to

the nature and scale of the parliamentary wok, they simply do not have the luxury to merely focus

on their specialist areas. In fact, they are all members of several different parliamentary committees

and sub-committees, for which they need to be able to switch between topics continuously.’

There is frequent interaction between the EPRS and the ECA,

says Sarah. ‘We can often complement each other’s work. Take

for example the recent discussions in the EP on streamlining

the implementation of the TEN-T regulation, or the preparations

for the ECA audit on high-speed rail in the EU. These are topics

where we very explicitly worked together. In addition, we have a

unit dedicated to ex-post evaluation work; our colleagues there

are regularly interacting with the ECA.’

Looking ahead – transport and mobility

Currently, there are pressing issues that require the attention of MEPs, such as Brexit, ongoing

conflicts in the Middle East, and tensions in the relationships with the United States, Russia and

Turkey. In addition, the European Parliament is preparing for the elections that will take place from

23 to 26 May this year. Sarah: ‘These are major topics that require us to be very flexible, and to be

able to provide good ‘intel’ once such events take place. We have to look ahead, as I mentioned

before.’ As one example of this forward looking work, Sarah refers to the annual EPRS publication

‘Ten issues to watch in 2019,’ which names electric mobility as an important trend that will probably

gain traction in the coming year. On a longer time-frame, other forward-looking services in EPRS

“

There is frequent

interaction between the

EPRS and the ECA [...] We

can often complement

each other’s work.

audience.

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include a ‘Global trends’ unit and a scientific foresight

service, which provide MEPs with strategic foresight

and analysis on trends in science, technology and

social and economic issues.

Sarah: ‘In the field of transport policy, one trend we see

is that many of the issues we deal with are becoming

very horizontal.’ She explains that, traditionally, the EPRS

research into transportation has been divided along

the lines of the different modes of transport, so rail,

road, air, maritime transport and waterways. ‘However,

I feel this division does not do justice anymore to the

big issues Europe is facing at the moment. In fact, in

most cases we see cross-cutting issues emerging, as

the modes are linked to each other, as well as to other

policy areas.’

Sarah: ‘Take the tardy completion of the trans-European

networks, this is a huge issue of which the impact will

be much broader than just on the transportation sector.’

As another example of horizontal matters that will

feature prominently on the parliamentary agenda of

Cover of EPRS publication ‘Ten issues to watch.’

Source: EPRS

the coming parliamentary terms, Sarah mentions decarbonisation, environmental sustainability

and ridding the world of toxic emissions. ‘There is no doubt that these topics will remain pressing

in the coming years.’

Innovations in transport will require new legislation

Fortunately, Sarah’s work is not only driven by dark scenarios. Laughing she replies: ‘On the

contrary, if you look at transport, one of the next big things is of course automated mobility and

the impact of artificial intelligence and digitalisation in the field of transport and mobility.’ She

adds: ‘Those are developments that are very promising and that might offer sustainable solutions

for the problems I mentioned before.’ And: ‘But these developments, especially relating to road

safety, self-driving cars, the sharing economy or the use of drones will require legislation, so one

can be sure to see a lot of debate in the EP on that.

Sarah emphasizes the speed with which such developments

are taking place. ‘It is very challenging for us to keep up with

that, and difficult to prepare for it as well. Take a company

such as Google and Apple, who would have thought ten

years ago that these would be in the car business today! So

when it comes to transport and our research in that field, I am

expecting some exciting times.’

Wanted: a broad approach

Concluding, Sarah argues that, because of the cross-cutting and cross-border nature of many

of the topics parliaments will need to discuss in the coming years, it is important that the EPRS

and its staff remain agile: ‘We need creative people that can pull all those different threads

together, and that are natives in the digital world to be able to provide our Members with useful

information in the format they prefer.’ And this certainly also applies to the ECA.

“

Take a company such as

Google and Apple, who

would have thought

ten years ago that these

would be in the car

business today!

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Foresight and audit

Foresight for transport and mobility:

forces, factors and future challenges

By Andreas Bolkart, Directorate of the Presidency

Foresight

A Supreme Audit Institution normally looks at things that happened and tries

to assess past events to come up with valuable lessons to improve policies and

processes in the future. But looking back is not always enough. To prepare for the

challenges that lie ahead, we cannot rely on our experience alone, because after

all, past performance is not necessarily indicative for future results. Therefore,

as was highlighted in the October 2018 edition of the ECA Journal, the ECA has

started to invest in strategic foresight. By doing so, it hopes to ask the right

questions today, so that it may have the right answers ready when they are

needed tomorrow. In this section, we try to probe into foresight issues whenever

this fits the Journal theme. First stop: foresight for transport and mobility.

Recently, the ECA’s Foresight Task Force undertook a broad trend study, the

‘ECA trendwatch’, based on more than 40 major international trend studies

and consultations with more than 60 experts. In this article, Andreas Bolkart

zooms in on the results of this analysis for the transport and mobility sector.

He provides an overview of the forces and factors at work in the sector and

discusses future challenges for public sector analysts.

Forces and factors at work in transport and mobility

The transport and mobility sector is driving many change processes in European societies.

There are numerous internal and external forces that either originate from or affect this

sector. Below an overview of the most important ones.

Internal forces

Force 1:

Increasing demand for mobility - Passenger and freight transport volumes in the

EU have been steadily rising in recent decades. The European Commission estimates that

they will continue to grow (42 % for passenger transport activity and 60 % for inland freight

between 2010 and 2050

Force 2:

Autonomous vehicles

Vehicles are increasingly equipped with assistance

technology that will ultimately replace the need for a human driver. This applies to personal

cars, ride hailing and sharing vehicles, public transport vehicles such as buses and trains, and

freight vehicles such as cargo ships, trucks and delivery drones.

Force 3:

Shared ownership

An increasingly urban population is struggling with rising

fixed cost, hassle and climate remorse of personal car ownership. At the same time, digital

tools make car sharing and ride sharing a convenient alternative. Therefore, personal car

ownership is expected to drop at the expense of shared ownership models.

Force 4:

Electrification

Price and performance of vehicle batteries are improving

dramatically. The same is true for renewable electricity generation. Finally, public opinion

and public policy is increasingly favouring electric engines because of the absence of local

emissions. As a result, electric engines are increasingly replacing combustion engines.

Europe on the Move: An agenda for a socially fair transition towards clean, competitive and

connected mobility for all COM(2017) 283 final, p. 4.

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Foresight for transport and mobility: forces, factors and future challenges

Force 5:

Digital mobility tools

Smart tools and services, often accessed from mobile devices,

improve the efficiency of mobility by optimising routes, travel times and the combination of

different modes of transportation. The ‘internet of things’ will include vehicles, transported

goods and the devices used by people on the move.

External factors

Factor 1:

CO2 reduction

EU Member States have set themselves CO2 reduction targets

that have led to a number of policies to reduce CO2 emissions in the context of transporting

people and goods.

Factor 2:

Health improvement

Poor air quality in large cities is a persistent problem for

public health. In addition, for health reasons citizens are increasingly willing to satisfy short-

range mobility needs by walking or cycling.

Factor 3:

Vulnerable cyber space

Transport and mobility systems that rely heavily on

networked data processing are vulnerable. This includes the threats to the theft and abuse of

personal data as well as the hacking, damaging and manipulating of infrastructure systems.

Factor 4:

Virtual proximity - The increasing role of online shopping, tele-presence systems,

remote access and virtual reality applications is removing some of the need for the mobility

of people. The technological possibilities are matched by changing patterns in the behaviour

of people and organisations such as tele working.

Factor 5:

Decentralised production - 3D printing technology and other forms of local

production and customisation are transforming the traditional mass production and

distribution patterns. In addition, consumers increasingly favour goods from close to home

for reasons of environmental protection and economic patriotism.

Future challenges for public sector policy makers and auditors

The public sector is the largest investor in transport and mobility infrastructure and

technology. Public sector agencies are also operating mobility systems themselves.

The public sector is heavily regulating transport and mobility for safety, environmental

and accessibility reasons. Finally yet importantly, taxation plays an important role in

influencing mobility choices. The forces and factors discussed in the previous sections

make it very hard to get public sector investment, operation regulation and taxation

right. The challenges for public sector action and the audit thereof are manifold. The

following section discusses these dilemmas.

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Foresight for transport and mobility: forces, factors and future challenges

Small is beautiful?

Public sector decision makers face the difficult choice between

classical large infrastructure projects and small incremental network projects. The latter

are available thanks to new technology but are also very unpredictable. An example would

be in city planning of choosing between extending a tunnel for underground trains or

investing in a fleet of self-driving minibuses.

Individual or shared ownership?

In the past one hundred years, individual car

ownership was a great success story. Lately, this model is stalling and shared ownership

models are emerging. Has the public sector created the right regulatory environment? Are

public investment decisions mindful of these changes? For instance, public parking spaces

should now be reduced or planned in a way to be repurposed as shared electric vehicle

stations later on.

Built to last?

In times of rapidly evolving technology solutions, large public infrastructure

should be adaptable. That means that planners should anticipate as far as possible

changing mobility patterns, new technologies and new user behaviour when planning

large-scale infrastructure projects. An example is a tunnel for underground trains that

could be planned in a way to be used later on for other mobility purposes such as a sub-

terrain tunnel for self-driving person and freight vehicles.

PPP is dead?

Public Private Partnership projects have a bad reputation of late. Too often,

it seems, service levels deteriorated and private investors took the returns but not the

risks. However, the future will hold many opportunities for effective collaboration between

private investors and public services providers. This could be crucial for future mobility to

operate across transport types, geographies and functionalities.

The price is right?

The public sector faces a large array of possibilities to charge for the

use of public mobility infrastructure and services. In the future, this pricing could be made

mode neutral and dependent on use of infrastructure. Nowadays, most countries charge a

flat rate tax for owning a vehicle. Some have fees for motorway use or entering congestion

zones. However, the available technology would allow charging exactly for every kilometre

of road infrastructure used, including higher fees for congested areas or times of the day.

In addition, some cities are experimenting with free public transport.

Data protection or data exploitation?

This dilemma exists in many sectors but is

particularly relevant in mobility. User data such as travel routes can go a long way to solve

congestion problems and provide additional services to users. On the other hand, this

data also allows for the total control of the whereabouts of every citizen. The public sector

needs to sort out how best to use and share the data it generates itself and then regulate

the use of any other data gathered in the public sphere (open standards and protocols).

A tax on mobility or on energy?

Taxes on different forms of mobility are nowadays the

result of a series of historic events rather than a thoughtful and holistic design process.

Fuel or energy in general is taxed very differently in the various transport modes and

are often not or only very loosely connected to the impact on CO2 emissions or other

externalities. Some tax incentive schemes are actually discriminating between different

forms of mobility, company car tax incentives are an example.

Innovation through regulation?

Public sector regulation is traditionally slow in keeping

up with technological innovation. However, regulatory edge can become a competitive

advantage in advanced economies. Regulators should encourage new technologies by

creating early on the regulatory conditions for rapid adoption and experimentation. This

applies for instance to creating standards for autonomous vehicles such as trucks and

drones. Safety assurance in road traffic may have to be adapted with the advent of self-

driving vehicles.

Connecting above and beyond

Public sector analysts and auditors should be mindful of these future challenges when

assessing public policy and programmes in the transport and mobility area. As there are

many different forces and developments to take into account, there is a clear the need to

assess the public sector’s role in mobility as a whole, instead of isolating individual policies.

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Reaching out

Third time the ECA presents its work at a

UN Climate Change Conference: looking

back at the COP24 in Katowice

By Arfah Chaudry, Private Office of Phil Wynn Owen, ECA Member, and Katarzyna

Radecka-Moroz, Private Office of Janusz Wojciechowski, ECA Member

From left to right: Katarzyna Radecka-Moroz, Janusz Wojciechowski and Colm Friel, all ECA, and Roxana

Lesovici, European Commission

The 24

Session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations

Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP24) took place in Katowice,

Poland from 3 to 15 December 2018. With nearly 23,000 representatives from

over 200 countries meeting to discuss issues relating to climate change, COP24

is the most important climate change event of the year. An ECA delegation

participated in the Katowice COP conference and Arfah Chaudry and Katarzyna

Radecka-Moroz provide more details on the ECA work presented, and other

activities in Katowice the ECA delegation participated in.

Rising emissions not met by concrete commitments

The priority for the COP24 was to agree on the framework of rules that will guide the

implementation of the 2015 Paris Agreement, which will come into force in 2020. These rules

determine how governments will measure and report on their efforts to cut emissions (see

Box).

However, at the end of the conference, some important questions on rules such as how to scale

up current commitments on reducing emissions remained unresolved and were postponed for

the next COP conference, which will take place next year in Chile.

Box - The 1.5°C objective – new research findings

In October 2018, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published its

special report on Global Warming. The IPCC has issued a number of recommendations

on how to limit global warming to no more than 1.5°C. Research released at the COP 24

conference shows, however, that global emissions were increasing and not decreasing.

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Third time the ECA presents its work at a UN Climate Change Conference:

looking back at the COP24 in Katowice

The ECA was well represented at the COP24, with ECA Members Janusz Wojciechowski speaking

on EU action on air pollution and Phil Wynn Owen on desertification in the EU.

Air pollution in the EU: our health still insufficiently protected

Our special report 23/2018 on EU action to protect human health from air pollution, was presented

Janusz Wojciechowski, ECA Member; Colm Friel, ECA Principal Manager and Katarzyna Radecka-

Moroz, attaché took part in this side event in the EU pavilion.

This report deals with the Ambient Air Quality Directive, which is the cornerstone of the EU’s

clean air policy and sets air quality standards that need to be complied with all across the EU. The

audit assessed the Directive’s design, whether Member States had implemented it effectively

and how the Commission had monitored and enforced air quality standards.

During the conference, our representatives emphasised the link between air pollution and

climate change. Air quality can impact climate change and, in reverse, climate change can

impact air quality. Some air pollutants can also be short-lived climate forcers, which can have a

potential impact on climate and global warming in the short term. Furthermore, air pollutants

concentration can increase due to changes in weather patterns, which are exacerbated by

climate change.

The event contributed to the ongoing discussions about the shape and ambition of the future

European clean air policy. Roxana Lesovici, Deputy Head of Unit in the Directorate-General for

Environment, also explained how the ECA’s audit findings are being considered in the context of

the European Commission’s ongoing work in this field.

In the discussions, it was noted that academics and policy makers treat climate change and air

pollution as separate domains. In some cases, this may result in the paradoxical situation that

decisions made to combat climate change may be detrimental for air pollution. This is why an

integrated approach and coordination of actions are needed to tackle these problems effectively.

For example, broad mitigation measures in the energy sector can reduce non-CO2 emissions,

hence improving air quality, with immediate benefits to human health. In this way, synergies

with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal on public health will be also achieved.

The team also took part in a ‘Meet the Expert’ session, where participants from around the world,

including for example from India and Peru, could enquire what the EU was currently doing on air

pollution and share their experiences.

SAIs event on air quality

On the margins of the COP24 conference Janusz Wojciechowski also participated in an event

organised by the Polish Supreme Audit Institution (SAI), NIK. Together with Krzysztof Kwiatkowski,

President of the NIK, Vladimir Toth, Vice-president of the Slovak SAI, representatives of regional

authorities, academia and NGOs he discussed challenges, opportunities and threats to air quality

in Poland and Europe. One of the main points of the debate was the presentation of the national

findings contributing to the joint report on air quality of the European Organisation of Supreme

Audit Institution (EUROSAI), which the ECA is contributing to, along with 15 other SAIs.

Desertification in the EU

ECA Member Phil Wynn Owen and Ramona Bortnowschi, head of task, presented key issues on

desertification in the EU, at a side event in the pavilion of the Benelux-European Investment Bank

(EIB), in view of the ECA special report 33/2018 to be published on 18 December 2018. Topics

they covered were: why the audit was carried out, what the audit questions were and what the

emerging themes in the audit were. Jonathan Taylor, EIB Vice President, also took part in this

session. Phil Wynn Owen underlined that auditors have a responsibility to draw attention to risks

such as desertification, which could place growing pressure on public budgets, both at EU and

national levels.

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Third time the ECA presents its work at a UN Climate Change Conference:

looking back at the COP24 in Katowice

Phil Wynn Owen and Ramona Bortnowschi participating in a discussion on desertification in the EU

during the COP 24

Third ECA participation since 2012

This is the third COP conference the ECA has participated in. In 2012, Kevin Cardiff, former ECA

Member, presented the ECA’s work relating to the EUROSAI Working Group on Environmental

Audit’s coordinated audit on adaptation to climate change. In 2017, Phil Wynn Owen, along with

Olivier Prigent and Katharina Bryan, presented the ECA’s Landscape Review on EU Action on

Energy and Climate Change.

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Reaching out

Touching base with the EP’s Conference

of Committee Chairs: discussing possible

priorities for the 2020

ECA work programme

By Helena Piron Mäki-Korvela, Directorate of the Presidency

From left to right: Cecilia Wikström, Chair of the CCC, Rimantas Šadžius, ECA Member, and

Martin Weber, ECA Director

It has by now become a tradition for the European Parliament, and more

particularly its Conference of Committee Chairs (CCC), to invite the President of

the European Court of Auditors during the month of January for an exchange

of views about work priorities for the coming year. For the ECA this is also an

opportunity to encourage the parliamentary committees to make known their

suggestions for potential audit subjects and to inform the parliamentarians

which of the previous proposals have been selected for an audit. Helena Piron

reports from the CCC meeting on 15 January 2019 in Strasbourg.

Meeting the CCC – a fixture in the ECA programming calendar

The annual meeting of the ECA President with the parliamentary committees – which generally

takes place in the month of January - has by now become a fixture in the ECA’s work programming

calendar. This year, the Chair of the Conference of Committee Chairs (CCC), Cecilia Wikstroem,

welcomed the ECA Member for Institutional Relations, Rimantas Šadžius, to this exchange with

the European Parliament. He replaced President Klaus-Heiner Lehne, who was unexpectedly

taken ill on this important occasion.

Nearly 60% of the suggestions the EP made last year were reflected in the 2019 ECA work

programme

Cecilia Wikstroem underlined the importance of the work done by the ECA for a meaningful and

targeted scrutiny of EU policies and programmes and expressed her satisfaction that more than

60% of the suggestions made by EP committees in the previous year had been taken up in the

2019 work programme. She also urged the EU auditors to report on ‘good practice’ examples in

EU spending - rather than just pointing at weaknesses and shortcomings - and to identify the

added value of EU action. She was also pleased to point out that more and more of the ECA’s

reports were being taken up for discussion by EP Committees.

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Touching base with the EP’s Conference of Committee Chairs: discussing possible

priorities for the 2020 ECA work programme

44 reports published in 2018 and a similar number of publications expected for 2019

Rimantas Šadžius pointed out that the ECA had published 44 reports in 2018: 35 special reports,

two landscape reviews, six briefing papers and one rapid case study, in addition to annual reports

and opinions on the Commission’s legislative proposals. For 2019, he said that, again, more than

40 such reports were planned for publication. In this context, he stressed the importance given

by the ECA to the input provided by the parliamentary committees when setting priorities and

deciding on its work programme. Taken together, last year the EP committees made nearly 70

suggestions and around 60% of these ideas had found their way into the

work programme for

2019.

Question and answer time with EP committee chairs

The discussion was opened by Ingeborg Grässle, the Chair of the Budgetary Control Committee.

She thanked the ECA for the excellent cooperation during 2018 and pointed to a recent change

in focus in the ECA work programme towards policy evaluation. Against this backdrop, she

expressed her preference for more informative, in-depth audit reports, rather than a further

increase in the number of audits on EU policies. She called on the ECA not to neglect aspects

related to financial control. She also urged the other EP Committees to use to the full all ECA

special reports relevant to their work.

Claude Moraes, the Chair of the Committee for Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs, stated

that he was very grateful for the ECA’s performance audits, such as for example in the recent

special report on the EU trust fund for Africa. He also indicated his committee’s particular interest

in the on-going audits on cybersecurity and FRONTEX, the European Border and Coast Guard

Agency.

Petra Kammerevert, the Chair of the Committee for Culture and Education, was looking forward

to the outcome of the currently on-going rapid case review on Euronews which had been

proposed by the EP in 2018. For 2020, she referred to the Creative Europe programme and the

Solidarity Corps as potential topics worth considering.

Jean Arthuis, the Chair of the Committee for Budgets, recalled that around three quarters of the

EU budget was managed at the level of the EU Member States. He suggested several topics to

look into: the structure and transparency of the EU budget, the use of consultancy services by

participants in EU programmes and the reasons behind the level of non-committed funds in the

field of research.

Linda McAvan, the Chair of the Committee for Development, asked the ECA to also provide

in its reports cross-policy ‘lessons-learnt.’ For 2020, she suggested examining the design of

development cooperation funding, including private sector funding and recalled the need to

allow for a certain element of risk in this field of EU action. She also suggested that the new

European Parliament should include systematically making full use of ECA reports in its strategy.

In response, Rimantas Šadžius underlined the ECA’s role in contributing to financial accountability,

but also in providing an independent view on whether EU policies and programmes met

their intended objectives. He reassured the parliamentarians that the ECA’s work on financial

management aspects had not diminished and would always remain a priority. At the same time,

money did not always solve a policy problem, as shown in the special report 10/2017 on young

farmers. As regards the EU auditors’ examination of EU added value, he referred to the recent

special report on Erasmus + as an example where this aspect had been explicitly assessed by an

audit.

Finally, the ECA Member thanked the speakers for their contributions and again invited all the EP

committee chairs and secretariats to come forward with their suggestions in the coming weeks

through the CCC. A broad contribution from this outgoing parliament could only help the ECA to

put together a work programme for 2020 that focused on those issues that were most relevant,

and this would benefit the next parliament.

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Reaching out

Visit by the Belgian Chamber of

Representatives

By Dennis Wernerus, Private Office of Annemie Turtelboom, ECA Member

From left to right: Luk Van Biesen, Annemie Turtelboom, Eric Van Rompuy and Tom De Geeter at the ECA

Early January 2019 Annemie Turtelboom, ECA Member, presented the ECA’s

2017 Annual Report and a selection of other ECA reports to the Belgian Chamber

of Representatives and its joint parliamentary committees for Finance and

Budget as well as to the Belgian Court of Audit. Subsequently, on 4 February,

she welcomed a delegation of the Belgium’s Chamber of Representatives in

Luxembourg to discuss issues related to the EU finances. Dennis Wernerus,

head of the Private Office of Annemie Turtelboom, reports.

Long lasting interest of Belgium parliament in EU issues

Belgium has always been deeply enthusiastic of European cooperation. It is a founding member

of the Benelux Union and of the European Communities, the precursor of today’s European Union.

It is fair to state that Belgium’s federal and regional institutions often see multilateralism as the

best possible answer to many of EU citizen concerns, whether these are about bridging socio-

economic differences in Europe, free movement, migration, or environmental, health and safety

standards – to name a few. Especially in the context of the new Multiannual Financial Framework

(MFF) for 2021-2027, the Belgian federal parliament has a particular interest in the EU’s budget, its

implementation and audit. In this context, Annemie Turtelboom initiated a process to intensify

contacts between the ECA, as the EU’s external auditor, and the Chamber of Representatives,

Belgium’s budgetary authority for the federal budget. Within the parliament, this responsibility

rests with the Committee for Finance and Budget. Its Sub-committee for the Belgian Court of

Audit scrutinises the Belgian Court of Audit’s reports, for the purpose of budgetary control.

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Visit by the Belgian Chamber of Representatives

Wide interest ranging from MFF discussions to air pollution

During the meeting in Brussels in January it was evident that Belgian Members of Parliament had

a wide ranging interest, also in issues going beyond those covered in our Annual Report. From

the large MP attendance questions ranged from the future Multiannual Financial Framework

(MFF) on the revenue-side, through the fight against fraud, to the implementation delays as one

of the causes for the rise in outstanding budgetary commitments (Reste-à-liquider) and slow

delivery of project results. There was also a strong interest in the ECA’s views on the Commission’s

proposal on how to deal with general deficiencies in Member States with regard to the rule of

law during the next MFF, a topic also addressed in ECA opinion 1/2018.

Annemie Turtelboom presenting the Annual Report 2017 and a selection on Special Reports at the Belgian

Federal Parliament on 9 January 2019

The Delegation visiting the ECA on 4 February 2019 consisted of Eric Van Rompuy, Chair of the

Committee for Finance and Budget and member of the Sub-Committee for the Belgian Court of

Audit (and also a former MEP), Luk Van Biesen, Chair of the Sub-Committee for the Belgian Court

of Audit, and Mr. Tom De Geeter, First Advisor and Committee Secretary.

During an afternoon of presentations, where feasible covering ECA findings particularly relevant

for Belgium,, they had the opportunity to discuss first hand our audit work on the EU budget

and specific issues with Cohesion spending, as well as a number of special reports of particular

interest to Belgium, such as for example special report 23/2018

Air pollution: Our health still

insufficiently protected.

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Reaching out

100 year anniversary of the Supreme Audit

Office of Poland

By Kinga Wisniewska-Danek, Private Office of Janusz Wojciechowski, ECA Member

Krzysztof Kwiatkowski, President of the NIK, addressing the NIK’s 100-year anniversary during the opening

of the celebrations in the Polish National Theatre

An anniversary is a good moment to look back at what has been achieved and

forward to where one would like to go. These were two major components of

the event organised to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the NIK, the Supreme

Audit Office of Poland, in Warsaw on 7 February 2019. An ECA delegation, led

by President Klaus-Heiner Lehne and Janusz Wojciechowski, ECA Member, took

part in the celebrations. Kinga Wiśniewska-Danek, head of the Private Office of

Janusz Wojciechowski, also attended and reports.

Auditing for 100 years

On 7 February 2019, the Supreme Audit Office of Poland (NIK) celebrated its 100th anniversary.

The NIK was one of the first institutions established in 1918 in a revived and independent Poland.

For a century, the NIK has examined how the Polish state operates and how it spends public

funds. ECA President Klaus-Heiner Lehne and Janusz Wojciechowski visited Warsaw to take part

in the celebrations. Janusz Wojciechowski was invited as the Polish Member of the ECA … and as

a former President of the NIK, a post he held from 1995 to 2001.

Looking back…

The NIK’s history has been as changing as that of the Polish state. One of the first decisions

taken by the Polish national authorities after they regained independence in 1918 was to set

up a state audit institution to conduct audits of state finances — the Supreme Office of State

Audit. It was established by a Decree of Chief of State Józef Piłsudski on 7 February 1919, even

before the first elected Polish parliament became operational. Setting up an independent

and efficient audit institution to safeguard public money was no easy task, and the NIK faced

a number of organisational, personnel and logistical challenges in its early days. Its name was

formally enshrined in the Polish Constitution in March 1921, followed by the Act on the Supreme

Audit Office. These legal texts significantly strengthened the NIK and introduced fundamental

principles of its functioning which are still in place today — such as collegiality, independence

from government and its position regarding the Sejm, the lower house of the Polish parliament.

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100 year anniversary of the Supreme Audit Office of Poland

The outbreak of the Second World War forced the Polish government and the NIK into exile.

However, the NIK did not cease to operate, as an audit office in exile was set up in France and

then in Great Britain. At the same time, the underground audit service was operating under

occupation. For example, NIK auditors verified whether money sent from the West for resistance

activities against the occupying forces was spent appropriately.

What many people may not know is that the NIK operated in exile for nearly 50 years, until the

end of the communist regime. Under communism, an institution was created to replace the

absent NIK. However, its independence was limited in various ways. The return of democracy to

Poland in 1989 also meant the restoration of the pre-war state audit model — fully independent

of the executive power and accountable only to the Sejm .

The new socio-political framework made it necessary to revise the legal basis for the NIK. The

new Act on the NIK, adopted in 1994, modernised state auditing in Poland, introducing, for

example, a six-year term of office for the President that was deliberately not synchronised with

the parliamentary term. This was done to strengthen the independence of the NIK, and it helped

to enhance public confidence in state auditing.

Nowadays, as a modern audit institution, the NIK operates centrally and through 16 regional

branches located throughout Poland. It employs approximately 1 600 auditors and administrators.

More information on the present-day NIK can be found on the ECA’s web-based portal ‘Public

audit in the European Union ’.Role and challenges for the state audit in the modern world

To mark the 100

anniversary, the NIK organized an international conference on the role and

challenges facing public audit in the modern world. Apart from presidents of the NIK and the

ECA, representatives of the International Organisation of Supreme Audit Institutions (INTOSAI)

and its regional European branch EUROSAI, as well as Presidents of the Czech and Ukrainian SAIs

took part in the debate. All the speakers stressed that nowadays, independence, transparency,

reliability and integrity are crucial for a state audit institution to function properly.

Participants of the conference were debating on how to best respond to challenges of the modern

world. They agreed that SAIs should stay up-to-date with the developments in technology – such

as data analysis methods and machine learning tools - and use it to improve the auditing process.

They also highlighted the need for interaction with stakeholders and clear communication of the

results of auditors` work. There was a consensus among participants that a ‘modern SAI’ needs to

be sensitive to the problems of society and investigate subjects of key importance for citizens.

ECA President Klaus-Heiner Lehne addressing the audience during the NIK conference on 7 February

2019. From left to right: Harib Saeed Al Amimi, President of the SAI of the United Arab Emirates; Krzysztof

Kwiatkowski, President of the NIK; Seyit Baş, President of the Turkish SAI; Miloslav Kala, President of the

Czech SAI; Filip Łobodziński, moderator.

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100 year anniversary of the Supreme Audit Office of Poland

President Klaus-Heiner Lehne stressed that SAIs need to be forward-looking and explore a range

of possible future scenarios: ‘To be able to invest our scarce human and financial resources in the

right way to be future-proof as a modern public audit institution, we need to anticipate now what

we will need tomorrow.’ In this context, he referred to the foresight task force that the ECA had set

up in 2017 to reflect on how to make the ECA ‘future-proof.’ Klaus-Heiner Lehne also explained

why he considered it important to link audit and foresight: ‘Foresight is a support tool for the

institution’s leadership, it’s a strategic planning tool, it fosters capacity-building and innovation.

It needs to be integrated into the institution’s decision-making and planning processes. But it has

an impact on all levels of the organisation. In the end, it is a mind-set of the people working for

the institution.’

In concluding the conference, Krzysztof Kwiatkowski, President of the NIK, thanked the

participants for the inspiring discussion and then addressed the NIK`s employees — experts who

have often dedicated a major part of their lives to their work for the NIK — to thank them for their

work and commitment.

Increasing ECA`s visibility

During the evening celebrations in the National Theatre, on behalf of Andrzej Duda, the President

of Poland, President Lehne was awarded with the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Merit of the

Republic of Poland for his achievements in furthering international cooperation in public audit.

The ECA delegation also met with the Polish Prime Minister, Mateusz Morawiecki , to discuss

various topics of mutual interest. Klaus-Heiner Lehne presented the ECA’s activities and strategy

and stressed our role in providing advice to policy-makers and legislators. The Prime Minister

welcomed the shift in the ECA’s priorities to ensure more time and resources for performance

audits. He found it particularly valuable that our audits check whether EU policies are effective

and where EU actions are actually adding value. Also discussed were possible topics which, from

a Member State’s perspective, it could be interesting for the ECA to consider when planning its

future audit work (for example measures to address money-laundering).

The ECA delegation (on the left) meeting Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and some of his staff

members in Warsaw

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Reaching out

ECA signs new partnership agreement

with University of Lorraine for diploma in

statistics applied to audit

By Gaston Moonen

From left to right: Philippe Lenges, Deloitte, Eduardo Barredo Capelot, Eurostat, Sabine Chaupain-Guillot,

University of Lorraine, and Lazaros Lazarou, ECA

On 8 February 2019 a partnership agreement was signed between the ECA and

the University of Lorraine in Nancy. In cooperation with the University a new

postgraduate university programme is organised, leading to a postgraduate

university diploma in ‘Fundamentals of statistics applied to audit.’ Gaston

Moonen attended the signing ceremony and got some reactions from the

partners in the programme.

Cooperation agreements between ECA and universities

Since 2015 the ECA has embarked on cooperation agreements with several universities to open

a wider range of opportunities for ECA auditors to capture and leverage useful knowledge and

give contents to life-long learning. First there is the agreement with the University of Lorraine

(Nancy, France) for a Postgraduate university Diploma in

Audit of public organisations and

policies

and a Master Diploma in

Public Administration – Management of public organisations.

The

programme is now in its fourth cycle, drawing dozens of ECA staff members in each cycle. Since

2017, the ECA has an agreement with the European university Institute in Florence, Italy, with

several elements ranging from access to documentation to hosting events and staff exchanges.

And since 2018 there is the partnership agreement with the University of Pisa, Italy, for summer

school teaching in public auditing and accountability. Its first edition took place in July 2018,

focusing on data analytics. For more information on these programmes see the ECA Journals of

April 2018 and August/September 2018.

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ECA signs new partnership agreement with University of Lorraine for diploma

in statistics applied to audit

Bringing together statistical experts from

different organisations

With the agreement signed on 8 February

2019 the partners – the University of Lorraine,

Nancy, and the ECA - intend to bring together

professors from the University of Lorraine

with experts from Eurostat and the audit firm

Deloitte Luxembourg. The courses are based on

a combination of theory and practice, aimed to

give you a broader understanding of statistic

and big data. The programme consists of four

modules, two on statistics and two on big data.

A successful completion of the programme will

give you a postgraduate university diploma in

‘Fundamentals of statistics applied to audit.’

The interest in the programme is high, as

shown by the fact that soon after opening

for registration the first cycle quickly received

the maximum of 15 candidates for that

one. As Magdalena Cordero Valvadiva, ECA

Director Information, Working Environment

and Innovation, explained, the programme

is geared to pick up statistical skills and learn

how to apply them.

Geared to life-long learning

During the signing ceremony on 8 February

2018 the ECA was represented by Lazaros

Lazarou, ECA Member, and Eduardo Ruiz

Garcia, Secretary General. The University of

Lorraine delegation was headed by Sabine

Chaupain-Guillot, Vice President for Education

and Professional Training, assisted by Professor

Antoine Tabbone, Director of the University’s

Digital Institute, and other university staff.

The agreement was signed by Sabine

Chaupain-Guillot and Eduardo Ruiz Garcia. The

new programme cycle will take place in the

second half on 2019.

Present were also representatives of other

organisations contributing to the programme:

Eduardo Barredo Capelot, Director in

Eurostat, the statistical office of the European

Commission, and Philippe Lenges, Partner at

Deloitte Audit, Luxembourg.

Magdalena Cordero Valvadiva, ECA

Director, commented:

The idea regarding deepening the topic of statistics

started already when the ECA got into an agreement

with the University of Lorraine to train our auditors

in techniques that we consider useful, but that they

may not have in their toolbox yet. And since there

is a lot of data auditors have to deal with, statistics

and big data came up. Topics being dealt with in this

programme will be: what is real statistical analysis,

so getting the right data. And second, that with

these data set you apply the right tools. This is basic

statistical data.

There are a few risks if you do not have these above

skills. One is assuming that you arrive to a conclusion

that is wrong because you see data which are not

true. Or, you represent in a chart a reality that is not

correct. Another risk is that you know which tools you

can use and which data you could use with those

tools, you can arrive at conclusions. But if you do not

know which tools or datasets to use, you will never

arrive at those conclusions.

Sabine Chaupain-Guillot, Vice President

for Education and Professional Training of

the University of Lorraine, commented:

For our university an important objective is to

educate peoples to professionals and provide

the competences they need, like for many other

universities. But another objective is that this

professional training and development continues,

as there is a demand for that from the many socio-

economic actors in our society. And it is important

to respond to this. We have now two different

programmes with the ECA, one directly related

to training auditors, and one related to statistics,

through our university’s Ditigal institute.

Currently we do not have any such agreements with

other EU institutions. However, within our philosophy

of continued professional training, we offer such

training to companies. In doing so we try to respond

to the business needs for continued professional

training and programmes tailored to their needs.

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ECA signs new partnership agreement with University of Lorraine for diploma

in statistics applied to audit

Philippe Lenges, Partner at Deloitte

Audit, commented:

Our part in the programme consists of

providing a technical session on statistics: how

can it be used in audit and what impact of

statistics can be in auditing the accounts. And

also when auditing big data. The person from

our side to contribute is one of our directors. He

is specialized in statistics data modelling and

how to apply it. Together with the university

input we aim to gear it to the activities of the

ECA. The statistical compenent becomes more

and more important because the audit job is

transforming drastically. And technology will

help us and statistics will also be more and

more applied, via tools that will help to use

statistics in the audit of financial information.

As Deloitte, we are contributing to this

programme for free in view of our partnership

wtith the ECA. It is a great opportunity to

further work and cooperate with the ECA.

Eduardo Barredo Capelot, Director in

Eurostat, commented:

In the world we are living now, with plenty

of information, sometimes fake news, it is

important to be trained in statistics and big

data. For EU institutions it is important to show

to people what are the sources of statistics. And

where they can find sources of information

and statistics that is reliable and comparable.

We, as Eurostat, have this role, and we try to

promote this with contributing to initiatives

like this one, but also with other institutions,

like the Commission’s Internal Audit Service,

and universities. Explain statistics and their

role in the normal world. Because this is what

we as official statistics need to show. Not that

there THE truth, because there is not absolute

truth. But which figures are available, with a

stamp of quality. I think this is important, also

in audit.

We try to share the experience, and we

have plenty of experience. Show not only

the sources where people, in this case ECA

auditors, can get the information, but also

how they can ensure the quality of statistics. In

addition, increasingly there is a call to base for

example the impact assessment achievements

of certain programmes and performance

indicators on statistics. This increases the need

for overall knowledge about statistics.

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FOCUS

ECA publications in January / February 2019

Special report N° 35/2018

Published on 18 December 2018

Transparency of EU funds implemented

by NGOs: more effort needed

The way in which EU funding is channelled through NGOs

(Non-Governmental Organisations) for humanitarian and

development aid, environmental protection, culture and

other purposes needs to be more transparent, according

to a new report by the European Court of Auditors. The

current system of classifying organisations as NGOs is not

reliable, warn the auditors, and the European Commission

does not have sufficiently detailed information on how

the money is spent. There is a similar lack of clarity when

EU money is paid to NGOs indirectly through United

Nations bodies.

Click here for our report

Special report N° 33/2018

Published on 18 December 2018

Combating desertification in the EU: a

growing threat in need of more action

The European Commission does not have a clear picture

of the challenges presented by the growing threats of

desertification and land degradation in the EU, according

to a new report by the European Court of Auditors. The

steps taken so far by the Commission and Member States

to combat desertification have limited coherence, say the

auditors, and the Commission has not assessed progress

towards its goal of achieving land degradation neutrality

by 2030.

Click here for our report

Special report N° 01/2019

Published on 10 January 2019

Fighting fraud in EU spending: action

needed

The EU must step up its fight against fraud and the

European Commission should ensure leadership and

reconsider the role and responsibilities of its anti-fraud

office (OLAF), as the current fraud investigation system has

inherent weaknesses, according to a new report from the

European Court of Auditors. Currently, the Commission

lacks comprehensive information on the scale, nature and

causes of fraud. This hinders the effective prevention of

fraud against the EU budget, say the auditors.

Click here for our report

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ECA publications in January / February 2019

Special report N° 02/2019

Published on 15 January 2019

Chemical hazards in our food: EU food safety

policy protects us but faces challenges

Although the EU’s system for protecting consumers from

chemical hazards in food is soundly based and respected

worldwide, it is currently overstretched, according to a new

report from the European Court of Auditors. The European

Commission and the Member States do not have the

capacity to implement the system fully, the auditors say.

Click here for our report

Public Audit in the EU

Published on 24 January 2019

Overview of EU supreme audit institutions’

role and work now available online

The Court today launched the first edition of Public

Audit in the European Union, an online portal containing

information on the work and role of the 29 supreme

audit institutions (SAIs) in the EU and its Member States.

The portal illustrates the SAIs’ contribution to the effective

functioning of democracy and provides an overview of

their mandate, status, organisation, work and output, as

well as identifying the differences and similarities between

them.

Click here for our report

Special report N°03/2019

Published on 29 January 2019

European Fund for Strategic Investments:

Action needed to make EFSI a full success

The European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI) has

been effective in raising finance for investments in the

EU, but the amounts of investment mobilised may be

overstated, according to a new report by the European

Court of Auditors. The auditors also found that some

EFSI support just replaced other financing from the EU

and the European Investment Bank. Part of the money

went to projects that could have used other sources of

public or private finance, although on different terms,

and most investments went to few larger EU-15 Member

States with well-established national promotional banks.

Click here for our report

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FOCUS

ECA publications in January / February 2019

Joint report Air Quality

Published on 30 January 2019

Joint report on air quality in Europe

Fifteen supreme audit institutions (SAIs) from the EU

Member States and neighbouring countries have joined

forces to produce a joint report on air quality. The report,

published today, unfortunately shows that many countries

in Europe are failing to meet air quality standards

Click here for our report

Briefing paper

Published on 7 February 2019

The EU’s response to the “dieselgate”

scandal

EU laws on vehicle emissions have been improved since

the Dieselgate scandal, but challenges remain, according

to a new Briefing Paper from the European Court of

Auditors. The auditors welcome the improvements in

market surveillance but point out that its effectiveness

depends on implementation by the Member States. They

also warn that manufacturers may find ways around the

new testing systems which have been introduced and

that scope for independent third-party testing may be

limited because of the high costs involved..

Click here for our report

Audit preview

Published on 12 February 2019

Performance data for EU budget support

in the area of external actions

The European Court of Auditors is conducting an audit

on the reliability of the data underlying nearly one fifth

of EU financial aid to partner countries outside the Union.

Known as budget support, the payments support the EU’s

partner countries in their reform efforts and in achieving

the United Nations’ sustainable development goals.

Click here for our report

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ECA publications in January / February 2019

ECA remarks in brief

Published on 14 February 2019

The Commission’s legislative proposals

for the next multiannual financial

framework (MFF)

The European Court of Auditors has today issued a new

publication summarising the main remarks submitted to

the European Parliament and the Council for use when

discussing and deciding upon the European Commission’s

proposals for the 2021-2027 multiannual financial

framework (MFF).

Click here for our report

Audit preview

Published on 26 February 2019

EU action to fight antimicrobial resistance

The European Court of Auditors is conducting an audit

of EU action against superbugs, including bacteria which

have become resistant to antibiotics. In particular, the

auditors will examine how the European Commission and

relevant agencies manage the key activities and resources

in this domain. They will also assess the relevance and

effectiveness of EU contributions and support.

Click here for our report

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NEXT EDITION

Fraud & Corruption

Promoting clarity and going beyond clean opinions

High moral standards, an appetite for transparency, and truthful and honest operations.

These are the qualities anyone may expect from public institutions, not the least from

those at EU level. What do audit institutions do to promote such mind-set and approach

in dealing with the vast sums of money nowadays transferred between economic

operators, be it in the public domain or in the private sector? And what can they do

against bad intentions?

For our next issue, we will dive into the world of fraud and corruption. What role do

auditors play when it comes to ridding the world of malicious practices? What powers do

they have to prevent and fight against fraud and corruption and how do they cooperate

with other institutions?

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Source: Pixabay

EUU, Alm.del - 2018-19 (1. samling) - Bilag 471: Rapport fra Den Europæiske Revisionsret januar 2019

ISSN 1831-449X

Reconciling transport and the environment

- a dilemma that is here to stay

Moving from EU patchwork to

EU network

EU passenger rights – auditing a policy that

really matters to citizens

Being ECA’s Mr Transport

Creating a level-playing field in the EU

EU auditor’s recommendations contributing

to a reassessment of public spending on

port infrastructure in Italy

Passing common-or-garden trees,

on a run-of-the-mill train

EIB leveraging finance to connect Europe

through cleaner, smarter and

safer mobility

EDITION

HIGHLIGHTS

COVER:

Moving towards a cleaner future?

Source: Pixabay/Nicolas toulas

QJ-AD-19-001-2A-N

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