Brussels, 28/08/2007 (Agence Europe) - On 27 August the European Commission approved Slovenia's “Environment and Transport Sector Infrastructure” operational programme for 2007-13. This programme sets out the Community support for Slovenia within the framework of the "Convergence" objective. Community assistance to this programme through the ERDF amounts to EUR 224 million while the assistance through the Cohesion Fund will be EUR 1.41 billion giving a total expenditure, including Slovenia's contribution, of EUR 1.92 billion. The main goal of the operational programme is to provide the conditions for growth by providing sustainable mobility, by improving the quality of the environment and by constructing suitable and sustainable infrastructure. At the same time the programme will help to attain one of the core objectives defined in the NSRF, namely ensuring a balanced regional development in the entire country.
The programme will enable the construction and modernisation of 428 km of railways (especially the priority project in the trans-European transport network: the axis Lyons-Trieste-Divaca/ Koper-Divaca-Ljubljana-Budapest-Ukrainian border), the reconstruction and modernisation of 215 km of roads (65 km of which will be part of the Trans-European Network). The plan is also to increase the share of population served by the water supply to 96%, reduce the flood endangered area to 220.000 ha, reduce the amount of landfill with non-hazardous waste by 295.000 tonnes/year, enhance the safety of cyclists with 105 km of newly constructed and modernised cycling lanes and provide additional renewable energy capacity thus reducing energy intensity and emission of CO2 as well as air pollutants.
The operational programme is divided into 7 priority axes:
3 focusing on transport, 3 on the environment and 1 for Technical Assistance. 50% of the Cohesion Fund assets will be allocated to the transport sector and the other 50% to the environmental sector and the area of sustainable use of energy. The funds from the ERDF will be allocated to the transport sector.