Brussels, 05/11/2015 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday 5 November, the European Commission announced the second call for proposals of the Connecting Europe Facility, with more than €7.6 billion of investment to finance transport projects.
These projects seek to stimulate investment in Europe. Out of a total of €7.6 billion, €6.5 billion will go to Cohesion Fund beneficiary countries (Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia) in an effort to help improve their integration into the internal market.
Under the general envelope, €1.1 billion will be available to all 28 Member States for innovative projects: Intelligent Transport Systems (including the motorways of the sea), traffic management systems such as ERTMS (rail), SESAR (air) or RIS (waterways). The “cohesion” envelope (€6.5 billion), will add to these priorities key infrastructure projects in sustainable transport modes such as rail and inland waterways.
Support will be granted on a competitive basis in the form of EU co-financing, following a thorough evaluation and selection process. Applicants have until 16 February 2016 to submit their proposals. The outcome of the calls will be published by summer 2016.
Under the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF), €24.05 billion will be made available from the EU's 2014-2020 budget to co-fund TEN-T projects in the EU Member States. Of this amount, €11.305 billion are earmarked for projects in Member States eligible to the Cohesion Fund. On 29 June 2015, the Commission unveiled a first list of 276 projects to receive CEF funding for a combined amount of €13.1 billion. Jyrki Katainen, Commission vice-president, encouraged project promoters to consult the new European investment advice platform so that they could sufficiently prepare their proposals and submit them to the projects portal that will be launched in January. Violeta Bulc, the commissioner for transport, emphasised that “The focus on the Cohesion states also reflects our willingness to better interconnect Europe and move towards a deeper internal market, another priority of the Commission”. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)