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2009-12-03 00:00:00
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More sharp practice surrounding the routing of a proposed Trans-European Network (TEN-T) corridor in the South Moravia region of the Czech Republic is expected at the European Parliament today, warned Bankwatch member group Czech Friends of the Earth, with representatives of eight regions in the Czech Republic, Poland and Austria seeking to sign a memorandum on the Baltic-Adriatic Corridor that would promote the construction of a duplicate and unnecessary highway joining the city of Brno with Vienna through the towns of Mikulov and Drasenhofen at the Czech-Austrian border. The attempt by the regions to include the controversial R52 highway within the corridor that should be financed by European money comes less than a week after the Czech Highest Administrative Court ruled against a Regional Land-Use Plan that included the proposed routing of the R52 highway. [1]Pavel Pribyl, of Czech Friends of the Earth and Transport coordinator for Bankwatch, said: “The actual TEN-T corridor goes in a straight line from Katowice through Breclav to Vienna. To divert it through Brno would result in a longer route for freight transit traffic between Poland and the Adriatic area and in the longer term also pose dangers for the UNESCO heritage landscape zone between the Czech towns of Valtice and Lednice that could become a shortcut area for freight transit between Breclav and Mikulov. “Scandals have dogged the R52 plan for many years, and a string of official verdicts from the likes of the Czech Supreme Audit Office have said that the route does not make sense. [2]“If this memorandum gets signed by the regions it will have no legal standing, but it indicates the determination of certain lobby interests to continue their push for an unnecessary project. Serious doubts persist over the Czech Republic's ability to properly prepare TEN-T and other motorway projects, and until proper public and European Commission scrutiny is allowed over these plans there should be not one euro of European public money spent on such environmentally and economically dubious deviations.” For more information
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