Brussels, 15/03/2010 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday 17 March, the European Commission will publish the fourth call for proposals as part of the second Marco Polo programme to upgrade and modernise goods transport services by shifting part of road freight to transport that is more environmentally friendly. The call for proposals will be launched according to simplified procedures to facilitate the participation of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
Companies will now be able to make an application for an individual Marco Polo subsidy, the selection procedure has been accelerated and eligibility thresholds have been lowered in comparison to previous call conditions. In practice, instead of the required volume of 250 million tonne-kilometres shifted from road to other modes of transport, the new thresholds will require an average annual shift of 60 million tonnes-kilometres (for a standard three-year project, the threshold will therefore be 180 million tonne-kilometres but the volume shifted can vary from one year to another). For projects exclusively involving internal waterways (the shifting of freight from road to navigable waterways) this threshold has been lowered to 13 million tonne-kilometres a year.
The predicted budget for this call is €64 million, with financing unchanged compared to the call launched the previous year - that is to say €2 per 500 tonne-kilometres of freight shifted to a mode of transport other than road. The call is open to candidates for five kinds of action: - modal shift actions, for shifting part of road freight to short distance maritime transport, rail, internal waterways or a combination of several transport modes; - catalyst actions, for overcoming structural obstacles encountered on the European goods transport market; - motorways of the sea actions; - traffic avoidance actions, integrating transport into production logistics in order to reduce the demand for goods transported by road and to have a direct impact on emissions; - common learning actions, for encouraging co-operation and the sharing of know-how amongst stakeholders involved in the freight logistics sector. Companies presenting the best-classed projects during the evaluation procedure will be offered contracts for subsidies lasting a maximum of five years for the starting up phase of the project. Nonetheless, the European Commission underlines that only companies presenting non-road transport project viable goods, capable of continuing on the market after EU funding has terminated, have a chance of obtaining a subsidy. The full text of the call can be consulted on Wednesday 17 March (http: //ec.europa.eu/transport/marcopolo /calls/2010_en.htm). (A.By./transl.fl)