The transport priority of our Presidency was met. The approved revision of TEN-T networks will help 5/12/2022|Press releasesTransport minister Martin Kupka chaired the Transport Ministers Council in Brussels. Today, the council adopted, among other things, a common position (general approach) on the Commission's proposal for a regulation on the Union guidelines for the development of the trans-European transport network, the so-called TEN-T network review. The decision will help in developing reliable transport on the backbone arteries and in obtaining funding for sustainable travel projects, in particular the development of trans-European rail networks. These will continue to run through the Czech Republic as well. "Today's agreement is important for us in terms of our Presidency of the Council of the European Union, because its achievement was one of our priorities. It is also good news for the Czech Republic, because a large number of projects such as our high-speed rail lines have been included in the TEN-T networks or upgraded. If we meet the technical parameters, it will help in obtaining funding for both the project preparation and the construction itself," says transport minister Martin Kupka. The revision of the TEN-T networks will therefore bring about an expansion of our HS network within the CEE region. "The main TEN-T network, now divided according to the implementation dates of 2030 and 2040, includes the HSL Prague-Brno, the Krušnohorský Mountain Tunnel or the HSL Přerov-Ostrava; the freight transport connection between Choceň, Hradec Králové and Velký Osek and other key railway sections will also receive similar support. Compared with the original draft regulation, we have also managed to negotiate the inclusion of the line (Prague)-Lysá nad Labem-Mladá Boleslav-Liberec-Zhořelec into the global TEN-T network, which will make it possible to significantly improve train connections between these cities in the future, especially to Liberec," added minister Kupka. We have also negotiated with the European Commission and agreed to include, unlike in the original proposal, the regional cities of Hradec Králové, Pardubice and České Budějovice among the so-called urban nodes, which included Prague, Brno, Ostrava, Pilsen, Liberec, Olomouc and Ústí nad Labem. This opens up more opportunities for them to co-finance their transport projects from the EU. "Last but not least, we kept our important political promise to extend the transport corridors to Ukraine and Moldova within the TEN-T networks. We will thus create a truly interconnected Europe all the way to the Sea of Azov," the transport minister recalls. The Czech Presidency also succeeded in agreeing on the wording of the regulation where we negotiated a compromise between the EC and the member states on the parameters of the length of freight trains, the height of the passage profile of container trains and the minimum speed of 160 km/h for passenger trains on the TEN-T core network. The length of trains that should be able to run on the core network will be 750 m, the height of the profile should be 400 mm and for the 160 km/h parameter the Czech Presidency managed to negotiate an exception following the demands of the member states that it does not have to be observed on the entire length of the TEN-T core network.