Central and Eastern Europe are falling behind because of their poor transport networkds, the Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Egidijus Meilunas said.
"Transport speed in Central and Eastern Europe is too slow. Therefore, there is a need to take more active action in order to solve this long-standing challenge," Meilunas said on May 18 May in Vilnius at the conference 'The EU Transport Policy White Paper: Challenges and Opportunities for Europe and Lithuania.'
Meilunas said differences in transport infrastructure throughout the EU present one of the largest challenges for the region.
"We have half as many train runs than the EU average. We are also 2.5 times behind the EU according to truck road density. This is a problem of the entire region. It takes more than ten hours to get from Vilnius to Warsaw, and about seven hours by car to cover a distance of 450 km. Do you agree that the speed of 50-60 km/h is not the 21st century speed? Imagine that by train it could take three hours to get from Vilnius to Warsaw, and another three hours to get from Warsaw to Berlin. We could have such a vision and pursue it,” he said.
The purpose of the conference, which was co-organised by the foreign ministry and transport ministry, was to discuss the plan that was outlined by the European Commission - the "Roadmap to a Single European Transport Area – Towards a competitive and resource efficient transport system."
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