The Highways Agency, Transport for Scotland, Transport for London, councils, damn councils and the Welsh mob. One day soon – UKIP permitting - the arteries of the UK economy (SNP permitting), could be under the control of the rather grand sounding trans-European transport network, rather less grandly abbreviated as TEN-T.
As with all things Europe, Brussels wants a single, unified road network to serve its single, common market “allowing goods and people to circulate quickly and easily between Member States” – think multimodal transport rather than a giant airport-style baggage reclaim.
TEN-T today got the nod from the respective arms of the European machine – Commission, Council and Parliament – to press ahead with unification by 2030.
Siim Kallas, commission vice-president responsible for transport, got quite heady about the whole thing and gushed: "This is a historic agreement to create a powerful European transport network across 28 Member States.
“Transport is vital to the European economy, without good connections Europe will not grow or prosper. This agreement will connect East with West and replace today’s transport patchwork with a network that is genuinely European.
“This is a major step towards building a new transport network that will be the backbone to boost growth and competitiveness in Europe's Single Market."
Quite how this will work alongside their welcome decision to backpedal on lifting cabotage restrictions next year remains to be seen.
Regardless, TEN-T will be a big beast comprising (across 27 member states) 5,000,000 km of paved roads, out of which 65,100km are motorways, 212,800km of rail lines, and 42,709km of navigable inland waterways. The total investment on transport infrastructure during the period 2000-2006 was €859bn (£737bn). Potholes will apparently be optional (perhaps a feature of a federal UK to maintain a link to the past).
Taking into account growth between Member States, expected to double by 2020, “the investment required to complete and modernise a well-performing trans-European network is substantial”. No kidding: the commission puts it at £1.5 trillion (UK road and rail spend combined in 2010 was around £17bn).