Italy, which is considered to be a driving force of the Central European Initiative, is presiding at three working groups - for the science and technology, civil defence and transportation. We are interviewing Achille Vinci Giacchi, Chairman of working group and Italian Minister of Transportation on recent activities of working group for transportation.

Mr. Giacchi, your group is one of the most active groups of the Central European Initiative. It has initiated dozens of projects, which should facilitate mainly transportation between western and eastern Europe. Which do you consider to be the most important?

Our group pays an extraordinary attention to two inter-modal corridors: corridor 5 and corridor 8. These corridors were worked out by the European Union in the period, when political division of Europe concluded. They should serve as an instrument for early integration of eastern countries and countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States into transportation network of the EU. This integration is condition for their economy development.

In relation with corridor 5, which will connect the Ukraine with western Europe, after signing of the Memorandum on Understanding, representatives of the participating countries met in January 1998 in Rome in order to form a joint managing committee. (An intention of the Italy is to provide necessary sources for defining of network for the whole corridor from Venice to Kiev, to join Croatia and Slovakia into the project and speed up implementation of the whole corridor, ed's note).

Concerning corridor 8, representatives of Albania, Bulgaria, Italy, Macedonia and observer country Turkey met in October 1997 in Rome in order to define proposal of the first Memorandum on Understanding with route of corridor, transport infrastructure and technical parameters for its implementation. In March 1998, in presence of Greece, the second session, which investigated proposals of the European Commission and discussed integration of the two branches into corridor, took place. One line connects Greece with Albania and the second one Greece with Bulgaria. (The aim of the proposed memorandum is creation of corridor Bari/Brindisi-Durres-Tirana-Sofia-Varna with connection to corridor 4 on the part Sofia-Plovdiv with terminal in Istanbul, ed's note).

Would you explain reasons which led the commission to working out of investment projects for pan-European transport corridors 5 and 8, or inter-modal logistic centre in Budapest?

We know that governments of the Commonwealth of Independent States will have in near future restricted opportunities to pay attention to important infrastructure projects. Italy tries to identify national means, which would be joined with means of international organisations. For this purpose, we will direct also means, which Italy allocates for the Central European Initiative. Via Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the CEI financial means were utilised for creation of the Centre for Information and Documentation in Trieste. The centre was established in order to collect all existing data, projects and studies. Intention is to avoid duplicate copies and utilise joint methodological approach.

Inter-modal logistic centre based in Budapest should be considered to be an example for bilateral cooperation based on half-private basis. Italy contributes into the project via idea, know-how and experience gained in inter-modal centre based in Cervignano. Our intention is to establish effective inter-modal transportation centre in Budapest.

In what way the projects for transportation are financed? Would you give several examples and explain mechanism of approval and financing of the projects?

Financing of infrastructure is a very complex problem, which enjoys a special attention and effort by all European governments and European Commission. According to my opinion, it is important to differentiate between different cases. Some projects should be financed via incomes coming from utilisation of infrastructure: such as utilisation of airports, ports, highways. Special projects, which link two very important economy realities, such as Euro-tunnel or Baltic Bridge, had a high political interest. It contributes to collection of financial means necessary for construction, even though operations should be lately transferred to private investors.

Quite the opposite, the projects especially those focused on railway transport and social needs must be financed from public sources. For example, modernisation of Italian railway network will be financed from the state budget.

Slovak Trade FORUM