Shaping TEN-T policy for sustainability: response to the European Commission Green Paper

As one of the most visible of the Community’s transport-related policies, T&E has maintained a close involvement in Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T) policy since the inception of the original TEN-T guidelines in 1996. Our concern has been firstly to seek to ensure that appropriate environmental considerations have been properly integrated into the design of the overarching policy itself and into the design and assessment of the projects that arose from this. We have also been concerned to try to promote a sustainable modal and geographical balance across the TEN-T, such that selected projects should genuinely contribute to a sustainable transport system for Europe. We have repeatedly called for the TEN-T policy to undergo a holistic evaluation on the basis of environmental impacts. Sadly, however, this has often been far from the case.