On past 10 October, a Thematic Subsidiarity Workshop was held as part of the Open Days 2012. The workshop was devoted to the new TEN-T policy regarded from a subsidiarity and multilevel governance point of view. 

 

The purpose of the Thematic Subsidiarity Workshops is to direct the subsidiarity debate towards practical issues in policy making within specific sectors, i.e. those policy domains where decisions are mostly made at the local, regional or central levels and where the European Union does not have exclusive competences. The future of TEN-T policy in the EU is a matter of special concern for local and regional authorities given the strategic importance of transport policy for territorial development and cohesion. In this framework, the Subsidiarity Monitoring Network launched its second Action Plan in 2011, under which a working group on TEN-T policy has been created.

 

The workshop was chaired by the new Coordinator of the Subsidiarity Monitoring Network, Michael Schneider and took the form of a round table. It counted with the participation of Ismail Ertug, rapporteur for TEN-T Guidelines in the European Parliament; Jean-Eric Paquet, Director European Mobility Network in the European Commission; Ivan Zagar,  CoR rapporteur for Connecting Europe Facility; Bernard Soulage, CoR rapporteur for TEN-T Guidelines; Anna Livieratou, Senior Programme and Policy Coordinator in the TEN-T Executive Agency; Mimmi von Troil, Regional Councillor from Västra Götaland and Johan Nyhus, Deputy Mayor of Gothenburg, both co-lead partners of the SMN Action Plan.

 

The panellists were questioned about their views regarding the new TEN-T policy; the figure of the European Coordinator, the inclusion of local and regional authorities in the corridor platforms and about how to further involve local and regional authorities in the whole process. At the end of the round table, Anna Livieratou informed about the activities of the TEN-T Executive Agency and how local and regional authorities can benefit from its assistance.