RAILWAY Days 2013 Greener and more efficient railways in Wider Black Sea area Bucharest, 09 October 2013 The contribution of the SEE Programme for Transnational Cooperation to railway transport in the region

7 years ( ) 16 countries 4 priorities 206M€ ERDF >20M€ IPA 2M€ ENPI The SEE Programme in a nutshell

1 st Call: (May 2008 – March 2009) fully open - “Bottom up” 2 nd Call: (December 2009 – December 2010) open targeted – “Bottom up” 3 rd Call: (June 2010 – February 2012) strategic – “Top down” ERDF/IPA/ENPI commitment Achievement of the objectives 100% 1 st Call 2 nd Call 3 rd Call 4 th Call The implementation: 4 calls 4 th Call: (October 2011 – June 2012) fully open – “Bottom up”

Open Call – Bottom-up approach – ERDF 119M€ 1400 Expressions of Interest (EoI) 66 Projects finally approved The 1 st & 2 nd Call for proposal 4 th Call for proposal all remaining budget 900 registered applicants Finally 47 projects approved >2000 Project Partners! SEE Programme so far The 3 rd Call for proposal Strategic Call – 30M€ 8 project of strategic relevance P1: 31 P4: 31 P2: 34 P3: 25

A highly fragmented region, with many small countries presenting nationally centred development dynamics (by recent historical events but also different status regarding the accession process to the EU) Scarcity and poor conditions of infrastructure, but most striking lack of real coordination in procedures among the countries, causing impediments and long waiting time at border crossing Car-centred development trends pushing prioritization of road infrastructure along the Corridors TEN-T network as a backbone The initial conditions (SEE ex ante evaluation ) The SEE initial objective on “Improvement of accessibility” Is this the element which is the most affected by the economic downturn?

Limited resources and resiliency Of course, NO INFRASTRUCTURE (limited budget, wrong focus), but “start improving what we already have” Concentrate resources on small scale investment or “soft measures” which could improve railway accessibility in the short period with limited resources Capacity of coordinate transnational financial instruments with other available financial instruments in an optimal way, to increase efficiency of disbursement vs. results No duplication! Before economic downturn, the SEE stakeholders had to adapt to the limited financial resources that the programme could offer and get the highest results out of it

Transnational Cooperation definition of future scenarios and reduction of cross border bottlenecks The project SEETAC has involved 15 countries of the SEE Programme with the aim of collection and harmonisation of transport data, common management of databases, the definition of common strategies in the development of infrastructure; SEETAC has identified road and rail priority projects, belonging to the TEN-T network and SEETO core network, and has defined scenarios for 2020 and 2030; full involvement of the SEETO (for the IPA countries) and the DG MOVE as members of the steering committee of the project; 4 Ministerial Conferences along the project have enabled “awareness” and “adoption” of project’s results by the 15 involved countries and follow up with ACROSSEE.

Transport connection from central Europe to the northern Adriatic ports and further on to the Western Balkans is the topic of project SETA 11 partners from 6 countries between Vienna/Bratislava and the northern Adriatic ports of Rijeka, Koper and Monfalcone are working to overcoming of different regulations, standards and working procedures SETA DEMO TRAINS - between Zagreb and Vienna (via Hungary) on 28 th September 2012 and between Monfalcone and Rijeka on 11 May 2013 – have been a first step to overcome existing organisational bottlenecks along the long route between the two capitals. Transnational Cooperation in improvement of organizational framework conditions

Through the project WATERMODE, ADB Multiplatform and GIFT, the improvement of multimodality to optimise freight transport AND reduce its territorial and environmental impact in the region (taking into account the condition of infrastructures and the traffic flows type, origin and destination) is pursued The three project overall benefit of the involvement of the Ministries of Transport of all countries of the SEE region, the Railways Companies of 10+ Countries, almost all Ports and main transport institutes. Their cooperative approach has been ensured. Roadmap for intermodal transport sustainability but also identification and feasibility of missing connections which would be beneficial for optimising flows while reducing the environmental impact in a perspective of increasing flows Transnational Cooperation for improving Multimodality and Green Freight Corridors

Transnational Cooperation in the connection of main Railway Hubs 12 City Rail Hubs are connected in this project to coordinate to offer seamless accessibility to citizens along the SEE Regions (RAIL4SEE) Bologna, Venice, Trieste, Ljubljana, Vienna, Bratislava, Budapest, Zagreb, Belgrade, Bucharest, Sofia and Thessaloniki: participate with their municipalities and regional administrations, but also 7 railway operators are involved. The project alleviates the barriers between the main railway hubs and within the single hub integrating the regional to the transnational transport system in a cross-cutting perspective. Planning at national level takes into consideration the need raised in the transnational dialogue

The paradox of resources wasting in times of economic downturn No Yes 99% 1% The experience in the SEE Programme has shown lack of interest from the stakeholders to the funds available Stakeholders have been finally involved but often they afterwards left the partnership (claiming not having internal procedure to absorb the funds) The common justification is: Too little money! Too much burocracy! However the correct combination of the different sources of funding could end up in relevant amounts of funding Did you hear about these projects before?

Just one slide on the legacy of the SEE for the future Stakeholders of the different countries have higher awareness on each other’s standards, procedures, requirements… Information on opportunities of funding – for infrastructure, but also for other activities, included cooperation – is improved substantially Studies have been carried out, data have been collected, agreements have been signed: these are all PUBLIC and AVAILABLE for future capitalisation Neighbouring approaches have been learned, to strengthen visibility and position where decisions are taken

The 2014 – 2020 scenario SE GATEWAY (Adriatic-Ionian) preliminary meeting with the EC on 5 March Task Force Meeting held, but still discussion on the Geographical Area No discussion yet on Thematic Objectives DANUBE Preliminary meeting with the EC on 19 Jan Task Force Meeting with preliminary discussion on Thematic Objectives according to the ERDF draft regulation COM (2011) 614 final Target -> mid 2014 OPs submitted to the EC

ETC Preparation phase New Draft Regulation is available Strong alignment with EU Specific regulation for ETC Strong support of existing macro-regional strategies Specific Thematic Objectives (7) Promoting sustainable transport and removing bottlenecks in key network infrastructures General − 19 th June 2013 – SEE Annual Event Workshops for the creation of synergies and identification of capitalisation elements for future cooperation − 18 th September 2013: SEE strategic seminar on transport Identification and preparation of inputs for the new programming period based on the SEE projects’ experience. SEE Programme

Roberta Calcina P3 – Improvement of Accessibility SEE Joint Technical Secretariat Tel