Jouni Ovaska (Centre), the chairperson of the Parliament’s Transport and Communications Committee, outlined the Centre’s platform for the European elections at a news conference in Helsinki on 17 May 2024. Ovaska has urged the government to give up on the West Railway, a project to build a high-speed railway between Helsinki and Turku. (Roni Rekomaa – Lehtikuva)
- Next Article HS: National Coalition and Social Democrats are neck and neck in poll
CHAIRPERSON of the Parliament’s Transport and Communications Committee Jouni Ovaska (Centre) is demanding that the government suspend the West Railway, a project to build a high-speed rail connection between Helsinki and Turku.
Ovaska called for the suspension after it was reported that the application for 176 million euros in EU funding for the project has been rejected by the European Commission.
“The facts speak for suspending the project. If the government doesn’t trust us in the opposition, hopefully it trusts the EU,” he stated in a press release issued on Thursday.
Ovaska criticised the Finnish Transport Infrastructure Agency and Ministry of Transport and Communications for failure to provide parliament with sufficient information on the project.
Minister of Transport and Communications Lulu Ranne (PS) has similarly expressed her reservations about the project. Ranne told Ilta-Sanomat on Thursday that it was not a surprise that no funding was granted for the project because of a poor cost-to-benefit ratio.
The completion, she added, hinges largely on the commitment of the municipal stakeholders: Turku, Espoo, Salo, Lohja, Vihti and Kirkkonummi.
Minna Arve (NCP), the Mayor of Turku, shifted the blame to the Ministry of Transport and Communications, saying the ministry should have lobbied longer for the funding and, going forward, commit more strongly to such projects.
“I think the West Railway project is significant especially in the presiding situation in global politics, where it’s important to build permanent connections to the west,” she said to Ilta-Sanomat.
In June, the government and municipal stakeholders agreed to split the project costs in half, the government pledging 400 million euros and the municipalities another 400 million euros.
Finland applied for a total of 325 million euros for 21 transport infrastructure projects from the EU, according to YLE. The European Commission granted 39 million euros in funding for 11 of the projects under the Connecting Europe Facility. Altogether the facility will provide over seven billion euros in funding to transport infrastructure projects across the 27-country bloc.
In addition to the West Railway, funding was not granted for the Airport Line, a project to link the long-distance railway network of Finland to Helsinki Airport.
Pekka Ovaskainen, the CEO of West Railway, stated to the public broadcasting company earlier last week that the project company is not giving up.
“The West Railway did well in terms of scoring, but the applicants included projects that are better and further along, which managed to get a piece of the small funding total,” he said on Tuesday.
The project received a score of 20.5 out of 25, falling 1.5 points short of the score required to secure funding, the project company elaborated in a press release on Friday.
“The new European Commission that’s set to start its work will open its own funding facilities for application in time. They’ll be opened for application in a year or two, and there’s nothing stopping us from participating. I believe we’ll have an even better chance to secure funding then,” Ovaskainen added to YLE.
Aleksi Teivainen – HT
- Next Article HS: National Coalition and Social Democrats are neck and neck in poll
Source: www.helsinkitimes.fi
