Luxembourg, 06/10/2004 (Agence Europe) - The European Investment Bank (EIB) has signed a loan with the Czech Finance Ministry worth CZK 8 billion (some EUR 250 million) for a 23-km section of the D8 motorway that is to link Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic to the northern border with Germany. The project will eliminate the final missing motorway link between Prague and Dresden and is therefore a top priority on the Czech and German alignments of the pan-European corridor IV linking Berlin to Istanbul. The new sections will benefit also from a EUR 62 million (approx. CZK 1.9 bn) grant from the EU regional funds (ISPA).
The sections to be constructed, located close to the German border, include cross-border facilities built on the basis of an inter-government agreement between the Czech and the German authorities. The overall planning of the full link covered also environmental mitigation measures, which have been extended on both sides of the border. The project is also being supported by the EU Structural Funds allocated to Germany.
Ivan Pilip, EIB Vice-President responsible for the Bank's financing operations in Poland, the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic, insisted when the contract was being signed that: "The EIB strongly supports the development and upgrading of transport infrastructure, especially the extension of the Pan-European Corridors to Central and Eastern Europe". He went on to add: "Their completion is vital for the economic integration of the new Member States into the Internal Market of the Union. This project is a further step in the development of Trans-European corridors on the territory of the Czech Republic and I am pleased to see that the Government has made clear to the Bank its priorities in this field".