S Kallas served in the previous Commission as Vice-President responsible for administrative affairs, audit and antifraud, and his origins in the Eastern bloc may alter significantly the distribution of money earmarked for infrastructure projects. For Romania, commissioner form Estonia would surely ease the construction of the Brasov-Bors motorway, since it may be part of a north-south corridor connecting Greece with the Baltic States.
”There is too little money spent on little projects and not enough on big ones,“ the Estonian told MEPs in the Parliament's transport and tourism committee. When pressed to elaborate, Kallas argued he first needed to agree a methodology to define which projects would receive the scarce EU funding. ”We will discuss this methodology in the spring in Saragossa and I expect an eternal fight with member states on how to define the final project list.
True discussion about financial perspectives will only start in 2011,“ Kallas concluded. A review of the EU's transport infrastructure is expected this year, including a revision of the 30 priority projects defined in 2004, which are mainly in the rail sector. However, a full-scale budgetary review is not due before negotiations start on the EU’s long-term financial planning next year, Kallas cautioned.
