Brussels, 28/03/2014 (Agence Europe) - A call for projects for European funding in transport, of up to €12 billion, under the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF), will be launched after the summer break.
The new instrument to fund transport infrastructure up to the end of the decade, the CEF, with an envelope of €26 billion, is taking a step closer to reality. The European Commission decided on 26 March that an initial tranche of €12 billion could be made available to fund infrastructure projects for the entire length of the trans-European transport network (TEN-T).
The commissioner responsible, Siim Kallas, described this “financial contribution” as being sufficient to achieve the anticipated benefits to improve transport connections (Ed: between East and West). An annual working programme for large-scale projects has been established with a budget of €11 billion. The remaining €1 billion will be used for smaller projects. A call for projects is to be published on 1 September of this year.
The priorities targeted by the European funding include adding cross-border connections where they are needed and a reduction in bottlenecks, railway interoperability, multi-modality in freight and passenger transport and innovations, such as communication between infrastructure and vehicles. Funding for third countries is possible, in order to allow these countries to be able to take part in European projects such as SESAR or the motorways of the sea. (MD)