On Wednesday 6 June, the European Commission presented its proposition for a regulation on the architecture of the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) for the 2021-2027 period, by suggesting an increase of 47% in the envelope in current euro compared to the 2014-2020 period (29% in constant euro).
Emphasis will be on the environmental dimension and the Commission would like 60% of the budget (the proposed amount is €42.3 billion) to focus on achieving European Union environmental goals. This proposal is part of the proposal on the multi-annual financial framework (MFF) for 2021-2027, presented by the Commission on 2 May last (see EUROPE 12013).
Violeta Bulc, the Commissioner for Transport stated in a press conference that, “Transport needs an efficient and flexible funding instrument […]. The newly proposed CEF, an instrument which has proven its successes since its creation in 2014, is exactly that”.
The major part of this budget, if the proposal were to be adopted as it stands, would focus on transport, with €30.6 billion for helping complete the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T). The main envelope will be made up of €12.8 billion, once €11.3 is available from the Cohesion Fund. The Commission is also proposing for the first time, to support military mobility to the tune of €6.5 billion, which is the logical conclusion of the publication of the Communication in November and the action plan last March on this question (see EUROPE 11902, 11991).
It should be recalled that the European Parliament voted on a resolution on 31 May last in which MEPs regretted the lack of ambition displayed by the Commission with regard to the CEF’s transport section (see EUROPE 12031).
A second envelope of €8.7 billion has been proposed for completing the Energy Union. The idea is to support cross-border renewable energy production projects as well as trans-European energy network infrastructure (TEN-E).
Finally, the Commission has suggested providing a final envelope for the digital arena worth €3 billion, which will particularly go towards supporting high capacity electronic communications infrastructure and digital connectivity. (Original version in French by Lucas Tripoteau)