Poland would be at top of list to benefit from possible new EU road program

The Italian government, which is preparing to take over the presidency in the EU in two weeks, prepared a plan of boosting EU economic growth through the substantial development of transportation infrastructure. If this was accepted, then in a few years four motorways and ultra-fast railways would intersect Poland. In the fall the European Commission will publish a project of extending the so-called Trans-European Transportation Network (TEN) to the 10 new member states. TEN is a network of intersecting motorways and ultra-fast railways, to connect lagging EU regions. The cost of the project for the new entrants alone would add up to around EUR100 billion, with about 40% of the sum to be spent on 2,900 kilometers of networks in Poland. The Italian government proposed that expenditure on these projects should increase by at least 0.5%-1% of EU GDP from the current 1% or EUR100 billion annually. Moreover, Brussels would finance about one-third of TEN projects in Poland. (Rzeczpospolita, pp. A1, B1) M.M.