ABSTRACT
Western, Central and Eastern Europe are in the midst of one of the greatest economic transitions in their collective history. The major shifts in the swiftly unifying European continent include responding to: crumbling of Communism; opening of Central and Eastern Europe; and so on. This chapter reviews some of the shifts and presents a framework of future needs and how the European's high speed rail (HSR) financial analysis process evaluates development of infrastructure investments. The financing of HSR in Europe evolved during the end of nineteenth century from a purely public sector enterprise, to one with increasing levels of support and long-term commitment from the private sector. The trans-European HSR alignments are one of the primary beneficiaries of Cohesion fund established by the Maastricht summit, to finance transport infrastructure in the less developed EC countries. This fund was established for the promotion of trans-European networks of transport, such as the International HSR plan, telecommunications and energy infrastructure.
