17/03/2026 (Agence Europe) – On Tuesday 17 March, the European Commission released €200 million for submarine cable and digital infrastructure projects as part of the Connecting Europe Facility “to ensure secure and resilient connectivity within the EU and beyond”. The first call for proposals allocates €180 million to the roll-out or significant modernisation of backbone networks in order to improve the security, capacity and resilience of the EU’s digital infrastructure. This call for proposals targets the 13 cable projects of European interest identified as priorities in the report on the security and resilience of the EU’s submarine cable infrastructure. The second call for proposals allocates €20 million to projects that provide smart updates to digital infrastructure, enabling real-time monitoring to protect critical infrastructure. Interested candidates must submit their proposals by 30 June. For further information: https://aeur.eu/f/l7t ; https://aeur.eu/f/l7u (SP)