Brussels, 25/10/2011 (Agence Europe) - European Transport Commissioner Siim Kallas has pledged to co-finance transport projects in regions neighbouring on the EU, while acknowledging that the funding of transport, mainly through the Connecting Europe Facility (see EUROPE 10478), will not be sufficient to cover expenditure necessary for EU transport infrastructure. Kallas was speaking to European transport ministers and their counterparts from six Eastern Partnership countries (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine), who met in Krakow on 24 and 25 October to discuss the Eastern Partnership.
Discussions came in the wake of an action plan for greater cooperation in the transport area with the EU's neighbouring regions, proposed by the Commission in July this year. Siim Kallas underlined the fact that they were “also ready to develop key transport connections between the EU and other partner countries. This is TEN-T moving east: we want to join up our network with the infrastructure of our eastern neighbours, drawing them more into Europe, politically and economically”. Aware of the fact that the current situation does not allow the EU to fund all transport infrastructure projects, the European commissioner nonetheless hopes to support a maximum number of projects, not only European but also those in third countries, in order to facilitate crossborder travel, and improve traffic management in the EU's neighbouring countries. To achieve this, it plans to use the various European allocations, including the European interconnection mechanism, and call on the financial institutions in order to pool resources and combine financing, “to do more with less”. Kallas also said that the €350 million from the Neighbourhood Investment Facility was still to be allocated by 2013, with transport being eligible to receive such funding. He therefore invites the EU's eastern neighbours to put forward projects that will be co-funded by the EU.
The meeting, organised by the Polish Presidency of the EU Council, also triggered work by the Eastern Partnership transport committee which is to bring together the European Commission, the EU member states, the six Eastern Partnership countries, and financial institutions (World Bank, European Investment Bank, etc) to define the common priorities of transport cooperation. (MD/transl.jl)