The European Council adopts the expansion of the TEN-T trans-European network
On Thursday, 13 June, the European Council approved an updated regulation on EU guidelines for the expansion of the trans-European transport network (TEN-T), a key system for the development of European corridors.
This regulation is designed to create a reliable, seamless, and high-quality transport system ensuring sustainable connectivity across Europe, addressing issues such as physical bottlenecks, congestion points, and missing links.
The development and upgrading of the TEN-T network will proceed in phases, with clear deadlines established by the new regulation: the core network must be completed by 2030, the extended core network by 2040, and the comprehensive network by 2050. The regulation focuses on integrating rail, road, and inland waterways to meet real operational needs and enhance multimodal freight and passenger transport flows across Europe. Furthermore, European corridors will be crucial in linking major logistics hubs and supporting the economic development of the regions they cross.
The completion of key cross-border projects, such as high-speed rail connections between Porto and Vigo and between Budapest and Bucharest, is scheduled by 2040. In addition, the regulation aims to merge the core network corridors with rail freight corridors, establishing the “European Transport Corridors”, and extends four of these corridors to Ukraine and Moldova, while downgrading connections with Russia and Belarus.
Following adoption by the Council, the legislative act will be signed by the Presidents of the Council and the European Parliament. The document is scheduled to be published in the Official Journal of the European Union in the coming weeks. The revised regulation will enter into force twenty days after publication.
GRUBER Logistics welcomes the revision of the regulation, highlighting the need to maintain focus on infrastructure. We hope it serves as a new starting point for a holistic approach to the transport sector, avoiding competition between different transport modes.
These developments are part of a broader context where multimodality, intermodality, and combined transport play a central role in the evolution of logistics models.