Corridor 5

6.11.2003

WRITTEN QUESTION E-3383/03
by Gianfranco Dell'Alba (NI), Emma Bonino (NI), Marco Cappato (NI), Benedetto Della Vedova (NI), Olivier Dupuis (NI), Marco Pannella (NI) and Maurizio Turco (NI)
to the Council

The Italian ('Trans-Padania') leg of Corridor 5, which is to link Lisbon and Kiev and thereby ensure optimum east-west transport conditions in southern Europe, is important to the European and Italian facets of the economy of the Friuli-Venezia-Giulia region and the city of Trieste.

 

The Trieste node is of particular importance in terms of links with the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and as an ideal point of passage for east-west road and rail traffic south of the Alps.

 

Despite numbering among the Transeuropean projects originally proposed by the Commission, it seems that the Venice-Trieste-Capodistria-Ljubljana-Budapest section has unexpectedly been discarded from the slimmed-down 'quick list', which could jeopardise a prompt launch of the project.

 

Can the Council, and notably the Italian Presidency, which like all the other Member States has participated in this decision, describe the steps it intends to take with a view to the December European Council in order to remedy a situation that penalises the entire area concerned but is especially liable to have serious consequences for the city and province of Trieste, and to reinstate all sections of Corridor 5 among the European projects eligible for launching by 2005 at the latest?