NO TAV COMMITTEES*

www.notav.info - www.notav-valsangone.eu - www.notavtorino.org - www.ambientevalsusa.it

Valle Susa - Val Sangone – Gronda - Torino

Open Letter to :

Mr. Jacques Barrot, Commissary to Transport and Tourism of European Union

Ministers of Transports of the EU Member States

Mr. Laurens Jan Brinkhorst, Coordinator of the Priority Project Program TEN-T n.6

Mr. Paolo Costa, President of the Committee of Transports and Tourism at the European Parliament

Members of the Committee of Transports at the European Parliament

Mr. Miroslav Ouzky, President of the Committee of Environment at the European    Parliament

Members of the Committee of Environment at the European    Parliament

Mr. Marcin Libicki, President of the Committee for Petitions at the European Parliament

Members of the Committee for Petitions at the European Parliament

Italian and European Media

2nd of May, 2008

Object: INFORMAL COUCIL OF MINISTERS OF TRANSPORTS OF EUROPEAN UNION - BRDO ( SLOVENIA) 5-6 MAY 2008

We are writing you with regards to the next informal meeting of the Council of Ministers of Transports of the 27 EU Member States that will be held the 5th and 6th of May 2008 in Slovenia, Brdo. In that occasion the Council is expected to assess, at EU level, the progresses made on the domestic routes  of major infrastructure projects in Europe (TEN-T) among which it has also to be mentioned the railway line between Turin and Lyon.

Citizens of Val Susa, Val Sangone and Turin, spontaneous Committees "NO HIGH SPEED RAIL" and numerous environmental groups have  spent more than 18 years to fight and argue democratically the building of this work which is considered useless and devastating for health, environment and economic resources of Europe.

We have read carefully the European Parliament document published last month -March 2008- entitled "Upgrading costs of the priority projects of trans-European transport network": we believe that, as regards project No. 6, it can not be a reliable basis for taking decisions on investing hundreds of billions of euros.

However, it confirms the leavening, over two years, of the costs of the Priority Project No. 6 Lyon - Budapest, which in 2004 was estimated at 38,102 million euros and increased in 2007 to 52,655 million. The growth registered for the time being is 14,553 million euros equal to 38.2% and represents by itself the 37.1% of the increase of all the priority projects (while its relative weight is 13.9%).

We wish to inform you that our reasoned opposition to the Lyon - Turin project has been enriched with the preparation of an exclusive dossier, made by ourselves, to be presented to the Members of the European Parliament in Brussels on Wednesday, May 7th, 2008 during a Press Conference (details: www.notav-valsangone.eu).

Our study demonstrates, on the basis of incontrovertible data, that the realization of infrastructure for high speed reached in Italy costs up to 9 (nine!) times the average of similar projects in EU Member States. It shows also that the cost data provided by the Italian government in the case of Italian Priority Project No 6 (from Bussoleno to Trieste) are absolutely “false".

This explosion of costs is partly attributable to the peculiar Italian oreography, which is quite complex in our peninsula, while senior magistrates and independent investigations have shown how this worrying and very expensive phenomenon is to be charged mainly with the admixture of interests between national construction companies, politicians and major criminal corporations ! Let us remember that this kind of mix has even struggled, in the recent past, with the right of participation of the most important European companies in tenders organized in Italy following unacceptable and anti-protectionist economic procedures.

The European Commission has allocated - within the network trans-European transport - with the consent of the European Parliament and Council Multi Annual Program 2007-2013, the amount of 671.8 million euros for studies on the Italian/French trans frontier branch of the new line of the Priority Project No. 6, with the commitment, set out in that notification, that the detailed presentation of the project would have involved the verification of its appropriateness of the criteria for eligibility for funding.

We fear that the European contribution to the Priority Project No. 6 (1,379 million euros, equivalent to 2.6% of the total) has been resolved on the basis of the Italian candidacy Dossier " Torino/Lyon high speed train" which was deliberately ambiguous and incomplete, clearly insufficient to allow an evaluation of additional cost increases. Actually the peculiarity of the new path has been assumed for the purpose (also unreachable) to obtain the consent of Mayors and Citizens to allow the crossing of an Alpine region already seriously compromised by servitude to transport and energy infrastructures.

We reserve the option of producing data and authoritative statements supporting this thesis and we wonder - with full and reasoned right to criticism of political decisions - if such a decision might be appropriate for a better and profitable use of resources of all EU citizens.

We are convinced that the decision to fund the Lyon - Turin as above - has been taken on the conviction that a "work of conciliation to find a solution shared between proponents and residents" has been conducted for about ten months by technical Val Susa Observatory.

The undeniable truth is that the Val Susa Observatory has among its tasks any "work of conciliation" but only that of technical study on whether or not to implement the new line. It has never considered the Dossier of candidacy submitted by the Italian Government for the funding 2007-2013 and has never expressed assessments on high speed track Turin-Lyon nor on July 2007 or recently, contrary to what was written by the newspaper Il Sole24 Ore on the 26th of March 2008.

The Observatory of Val Susa has come so far to conclusions diametrically opposed to those mentioned in the Dossier candidacy  which indicates as a priority the creation of a new high speed connection, following the detailed examination of two different exercise books already published by the Presidency Council of Ministers.

In this regard we wish to recall that on the 28th of March 2008 MEPs Vittorio Agnoletto and Monica Frassoni lodged a parliamentary written question: "If the Commission is aware that the Observatory Val Susa plays no "work of conciliation" but evaluation of priorities for action, supporting different conclusions from the priorities of the Project EU 06010 which was granted a community co-financing; how it intends to consider these different assessments proceeding on the verification of eligibility of the project in question.”

We are also convinced that no serious effort has been made to estimate the benefits of these projects or to assess the damages to environment and citizen health.

It was finally announced that the European political authorities would have obtained a commitment by the EIB on these projects which, for the majority, are rail lines that - we are convinced - won't gain enough and won't be able to repay the capital invested.

On that issue we underline the danger that EIB - which is financed on the market and which should fund, pursuant to its statutes, only profitable socio-economic - become the "armed" limb of politicians.

We believe that attracting the participation of individuals with the means of LGGT (Loan Guarantee Instrument for trans-European transport network projects) could be used as a diversion of public resources ineligible at EU level. This tool provides aid to companies to cope with the risks of inadequate revenues traffic during the first 5-7 years of operational phase of a project, aid decided on the basis of financial long-term viability long-term that, for the railway line Lyon-Turin, is far from proven. A decision as if it had taken at the level of State aid would be considered a state aid and therefore censored.

It is obvious that private companies will venture into these projects, which have a high financial risk in the initial operational phase, only if a part of their financing comes from governments.

Please consider this letter also as an addendum to our Petitions no. 949/2003, 523/2004, 198/2005 e 786/2007.

We hope that our message will encourage a deep reflection on the decisions you are going to take.

Please accept our best regards. 

NO TAV COMMITTEES
Valle Susa - Val Sangone
Gronda - Torino

* NO TAV  means “NO to the High Speed Train” and it is the name of the various popular Committees which formed in the Susa Valley since 1992, when it was first proposed the High Speed railway project for people’s transport; this first project was abandoned because regarded not financially valuable.