Apóstolos Tzitzikóstas, European Commissioner for Sustainable Transport and Tourism, said that he was counting on Member States to support the budget proposals aimed at improving cross-border links, at a press conference in Austria, on Thursday 18 September.
The Commissioner was there to take part in the inauguration ceremony for the Brenner tunnel. The 55 km tunnel linking Innsbruck in Austria to Fortezza in Italy is one of the biggest infrastructure projects in Europe. Between 2007 and 2013, the project received €785 million from the trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T) budget. Under the ‘Connecting Europe Facility’ (CEF), several hundred million euros have been invested in works and studies.
“We are fully committed to supporting improvements to more cross-border transport links in the future”, stressed Mr Tzitzikóstas. “For the next EU budget, the amount foreseen for transport has been doubled from €25.8 billion to €51.5 billion”, he said (see EUROPE 13683/3). “Two-thirds of that will support major cross-border projects along the TEN-T”.
He also stated that he would like to make rail “an attractive means of transport, both for passengers and for freight, so that citizens and businesses can opt for this mode of transport of their own accord, because it makes sense”. (Original version in French by Anne Damiani)