2023-11-17 11:09:00
New twist for the tram extension project in Seraing and Herstal. Adopted by the European Commission yesterday, the work to extend the tram to Seraing and Herstal will no longer be financed through the European recovery plan as was planned.
“We have operated a “switch”, which transfers the financing of the tram project to regional budgets. This removes the constraint of European timing and therefore allows more flexibility to find a solution in the matter”, we indicate to the office of the Secretary of State for Recovery and Strategic Investments, Thomas Dermine. Thus, there is no longer any need to complete the work by July 2026 in order to meet the deadline imposed to benefit from the budget of the said recovery plan.
Information which was mentioned during the Seraing municipal council by Mayor Déborah Géradon on November 13. In this way, the Walloon Region, which is in charge in this matter, no longer necessarily depends on Tram’Ardent which would demand 60 million instead of the 18 expected to carry out its part of the project.
Electric buses
In exchange and in order not to lose European subsidies, the RRF recovery plan, financed with European funds, therefore resumes for the same amount of 105 million euros (the amount planned for the extensions to Seraing and Herstal) in order to pay the work for an electric bus depot as well as the delivery of 14 articulated electric buses and 18 bi-articulated electric buses to Liège.
The plan that was adopted by the European Commission yesterday already incorporates this change.
Good or bad idea
Good news for the Seresians and Herstalians? Nothing is certain since the Region actually benefits from more time to carry out this extension work. On the other hand, there is no precise date for the arrival of the tram in Seraing and Herstal, which qualifies this “switch” which will demonstrate in the future whether it was the right choice to make.
Thomas Dermine: “It was the right decision to make!”
Thormas Dermine, Secretary of State for Recovery and Strategic Investments, confirmed our information. “I’m not jumping for joy, but it was the right decision to make.”
And the Secretary of State explains the feedback from this decision which was submitted to Europe several weeks ago. “We in fact began revising our requests as part of the European Recovery Plan at the end of last summer. We discussed it with the Walloon Region and carried out an analysis before concluding that there was a real risk of not completing the tram work in Herstal and Seraing on time. In this scenario, the risks of losing European subsidies were very real, which would have undermined funding.”
The decision was therefore made to “switch” the tram project with other projects not subject to European funding, but more successful. “It is obviously not a question of giving up on tram extensions, but of reallocating the 105 million not spent by the Region for projects currently subsidized by Europe”.
That said, Thomas Dermine is aware of the beneficial effects of the recovery plan and its time constraints. “There are virtues to constraint. This forces people to agree and submit projects on time, for the benefit of the citizen. But here, given the constraints, I repeat, it was the right decision to make.
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