On 8 December the boards of the Basque Country’s Council of Elected Representatives and its Development Council agreed to adopt a joint opinion on the proposed high-speed train line for Southern Atlantic Europe. The decision gave the green light for the design phase of the project, which will entail rigorous environmental precautions and stipulations about additional link lines so that the entire Basque Country can benefit from the new service.

It was crucially important that Councils took a position on the project, as 31 December marked the end of the ‘public consultation’ procedure. A western TGV line linking Paris and Madrid has featured for some 12 years now on maps of major land infrastructure eligible for EU funding. At last, after much delay and prevarication, we know that the Paris-Bordeaux section will be in place by 2016, with the Spanish section, including the Basque ‘Y’, scheduled for completion between 2010 and 2013. For a while, the French Basque Country had looked in danger of being the missing link on this major trans-European route.

As with all big projects, opposition and concern has been expressed on many fronts: allowing everyone to air their questions and opinions is, after all, the purpose of ‘public consultation’. The Council of Elected Representatives was the first body to call for an independent report, in addition to the information supplied by the French Rail Network RFF. Having taken the environmental recommendations on board, the case for the project seemed convincing.

Development of rail traffic is, in fact, central to the three key aims for the Basque Country: to curb the unsustainable volume of road freight, to improve cross-border relations, and to put the region on a level playing field with other population centres in France. Existing rail links need to be upgraded and while that alone would probably be enough to secure one of the three aims, achieving them all will clearly require a new line.

Were a new line not in prospect, we would have to be less ambitious, but which aim could we drop?

Surely not the transfer of goods from road to rail? No one concerned with protecting the environment and keeping our roads safe could accept the massive congestion and the choking pollution that would result from continued growth in road freight traffic at the current rate. While experts differ on the proportion of freight that it is possible to shift off our roads, there is no doubt that without a new rail line there can be no transfer at all!

Surely we cannot abandon the cross-border tram-train that is to serve all the coastal towns of the French Basque Country, connecting with the ‘Topo’ in Irun? The fact is that public transport provision has a great deal of catching up to do in order to keep pace with the spontaneous development of links across the Bayonne-San Sebastian conurbation in the fields of trade, tourism, culture, sports and festivals.

What about the TGV passenger service, which has brought wealth to the French towns and cities that already benefit from it (and for which Toulouse is currently jostling with our own region on the planners’ waiting list)? Angers, Nantes, Rennes, Tours, Dijon and Besançon have all seen their fortunes transformed by the direct access to Paris and to Roissy airport which the TGV offers. Lille has an entirely new economic orientation and a new image, thanks to its position as a hub on the TGV network, just two hours from London, one hour from Paris and half an hour from Brussels. Next June, when it is no more than two-and-a-half hours from Paris, Strasbourg will have a better claim to its sought-after status as a European capital. Meanwhile, the entire neighbourhood around Perpignan’s famous railway station is being reconstructed in preparation for completion of the eastern Paris-Madrid link – 15 years before the cutting of the ribbon on our own line.

The unfortunate fact is that the new line between Bordeaux and the Spanish border cannot be in place before 2020 – which means we have time to stipulate the route it should take and to get the technical details right. Now is the time, however, for taking decisions about scheduling and funding the planning phase. At EU level there is fierce competition for a share of the EUR 8 billion earmarked for links of this type over the period 2007-2013. The Commissioner in charge, our fellow countryman Jacques Barrot, has made it clear that he can consider only projects which have been supported by the Member States from the outset.

The Basque Country has shouldered its responsibility. Paris and Brussels must now do likewise.

Alain Lamassoure, 9 December 2006