Brussels, 17/02/2016 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday 17 February, the Innovation and Network Executive Agency (INEA) announced that around 427 project proposals worth €13 billion had been submitted at the end of the second Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) call for proposals.
Around 140 projects were submitted following the transport call for proposals as part of the Transport Cohesion Call, which only involves member states eligible for cohesion funding, namely, the new member states, Croatia, Portugal and Greece. These funds particularly focus on infrastructure and the projects correspond to a total financing value of €9.79 billion (the participation rate is equal to 1.51%). The Transport General Call is open to all member states and seeks to digitalise the transport sector and the number of projects submitted rose to 287, corresponding to a total value of €3.17 billion. Its participation rate stands at 2.91%.
It will be a tough selection process following the first call for projects (see EUROPE 11346 and 11463), given that only €7.6 billion is available for this second wave. The Commissioner for Transport, Violeta Bulc, therefore advised project promoters to submit their projects to the European Investment Project Portal (EIPP) in order to reach a large number of investors in Europe.
The second call for projects was launched on 5 November last. The cut-off date for submitting projects was set for 16 February this year. The Commission is hoping to conclude the assessment procedure in July 2016. A third call is planned but no date has as yet been confirmed. According to one source, everything will depend on what funding remains available. (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)