The European Commission presented its work programme for the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF 2.0) for the period 2021-2023 to members of the European Parliament’s Committee on Transport on Thursday 2 September (see EUROPE 12757/8).
The programme should promote interconnection and multimodality with a view to developing rail, road, maritime and inland waterway infrastructures, with the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T) at the forefront.
Several points caught the attention of MEPs. A number of them deplored the fact that the train is not a top priority.
“This plan involves major investments in rail. This is a prerequisite for a complete and coherent network. All the more so with the climate challenges. Financing roads and airports does not serve the EU’s objectives. The connection of rail networks in the EU must be strengthened”, said Johan Danielsson (S&D, Sweden).
The question of investment was also often raised. Although the figures are available - three envelopes, for a total budget of 25 billion euros, including 12.8 billion to complete the TEN-T, 11.7 billion for its modernisation and 1.7 billion for military mobility - there are still grey areas.
“It should be made clear what you would include in the different envelopes. We should have all the information to know how you are going to organise the calls for projects”, insisted Marian-Jean Marinescu (EPP, Romania).
“We concede that we are not giving all the details. But that is because it allows us to keep some flexibility”, the Commission replied.
Similarly, some MEPs, such as Dominique Riquet (Renew Europe, France), felt that the Commission’s pre-allocation and forecasting of charging points for electric vehicles and military mobility would require “technical and political discussions”.
Moreover, while CEF 2.0 is part of the Commission’s overall strategy to achieve its climate and environmental objectives, it presented its ‘Fit For 55’ package (see EUROPE 12781/5) to the Committee on Wednesday 1 September, some MEPs would like to be even more ambitious.
“You tell us that 60% of the budget will be devoted to climate objectives. What about the other 40?”, asked Committee on Transport Chair Karima Delli (Greens/EFA, France). This question was not answered during the debate. (Original version in French by Thomas Mangin)