Luxembourg, 10/12/2007 (Agence Europe) - On 10 December, the Réseau ferré (RFF) and the European Investment Bank (EIB) signed a financing contract worth €475 million for the first phase of the new high-speed line for Bourgogne. This line starts in Dijon and goes via Alsace, Germany and Switzerland. The contact will enable the RFF to borrow up to €475 million from the EIB over the next two years.
The high-speed line will go from the west to the east, beginning in the Côte-d'Or in Bourgogne, though the France Comté region and will terminate near Alsace. The first phase of the work by the RFF, which the EIB loan is contributing towards, covers 139 km of high-speed railway line construction going from Villers-les-Pots (east of Dijon) to Petit-Croix (near Belfort). The high-speed Rhine-Rhône line is part of the European Union's priority Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T) and receives particular attention from the EIB in this respect.
When the loan was signed for, EIB vice president, Philippe de Fontaine Vive welcomed the partnership as a major player in French railway development (RFF), a long term partnership that needs to continue. He pointed out that “rail is now more than ever a priority in France, as reaffirmed by the Grenelle Environment conference, and many projects still need implementing to complete and extend the French network over the next few decades”.
The EIB, as part of its support to the major transport infrastructures, has participated in the funding of most high-speed lines in France to the tune of €3.6bn, €755 of which went to the TGV Est inaugurated last June, €340 million for the TGV Atlantique, €884 million for the TGV Nord and €618 million for the TGV Mediterranean. It also contributed to the completion of the high-speed networks in Belgium, the United Kingdom, Spain and Italy, by lending a total of around €17bn to “high-speed trains” in the European Union.
With €84bn signed for the TEN-T in the EU and their extension to Europe's border regions (since the European Council of Essen's identification in 1994 of these projects as being of major interest), the EIB has become the biggest source of bank financing to the main networks. (O.L.)