- “So here very clearly we are overachieving the threshold which was set in the self regulation. On the next slide we see that in terms of transport modes, as I already said, the bulk of the money goes to railways. The second sector is then the waterborne which comprises ports but also inland waterways. We do have a certain number of road projects. These are then cross-border roads identified in the CEF regulation, but also mainly parking areas and also military mobility projects, including also the its traffic management system. And then in the fourth column you see the air part, which includes again also the traffic management systems, military mobility. And last but not least, alternative fuels, where we have allocated so far €1.3 billion, two projects for the alternative fuel infrastructure. Equally important focus of our spending so far is on cross border, as you can see on the next slide. Um, so 78% of the budget goes into projects which are of cross-border importance, be it because they are direct cross-border links, be it because they are multimodal projects, because when we speak multimodal, we speak long distance, which means crossing borders. The European traffic management systems, which are important for cross-border activity. Alternative fuels, which we are deploying along the ten-t. So this is also, again for the long distance cross-border traffic and also the missing links, which are identified in the CEF regulation in the annex as important contributions to the Ten-t network functioning as a whole. On the next slide, we just pinpoint a couple of projects.”
Decarbonisation of maritime transport · EV charging infrastructure · EU support of rail transport
- “Thank you very much Mister Chair and thank you very much for giving us the opportunity to present the Connecting Europe Facility, one of the proposals in the MFF package that the Commission has presented in July this year. You have already mentioned the figures of the budget of the Connecting Europe Facility: eighty-one billion euros in total for the next MFF period, out of which fifty-one point five billion for transport. Within this fifty-one billion euros, we foresee to allocate seventeen point six billion for military mobility and we have twenty-nine point nine billion euros foreseen for energy. For those who know the CEF in its current stage and in the previous MFF period, you will notice that digital is no longer part of the Connecting Europe Facility. This is now supported under the European Competitiveness Fund in the digital window. One more general remark is that among all the MFF proposals, we are the proposals with the highest climate contribution target, seventy percent, which is set in the performance regulation. This is exceeding by far all the other programs that are presented with climate targets. I will focus on the transport part obviously. So here the Connecting Europe Facility is there to support the completion of the Trans-European Transport Network, the TEN-T network. For the TEN-T network, there is a revised policy background. We have the new regulation which was adopted by Parliament and Council last year. This regulation foresees that we complete the core network of this TEN-T network by 2030, the extended core network by 2040, and the comprehensive network by 2050. So there's still a lot of work to be done and especially on the cross-border section to connect the national networks better. At the same time, the objective is to contribute to dual use civilian-military transport. This is particularly important because we know that it is very difficult these days to transport large quantities of goods and a high number of people in an efficient way across the borders. This has notably also to do with infrastructure which is not up to standards and which does not allow heavier or larger convoys to pass. We have here worked together with the military community and the Council has identified four EU priority military mobility corridors which will be the focus of our endeavors. On these corridors, we have already identified together with the Member States five hundred hotspots, which is something that shows the amplitude of what needs to be done under Connecting Europe Facility One, which was from 2014 to 2020, and Connecting Europe Facility Two, which is the current one from 2021 to 2027. We have in total supported seventeen hundred and fifty-eight projects with a total of almost forty-four billion euros, out of which then we have these ninety-five military mobility projects. Just to flag that we are covering all Member States with these projects, that the focus is very strongly on railways and on inland waterways, and that among the large projects we are supporting you might have heard of projects like the Brenner Base Tunnel, like the Canal Saint-Nazaire in France, or like Rail Baltica which is connecting the three Baltic States with European track gauge to the rest of Europe. Also to be noted that we are supporting better connections to Ukraine and Moldova by deploying their European track gauge as well. So against this background of needing a better connected European network, we have presented our proposal with the following specific objectives that you find in Article 3.2.a and there are the three sub bullet points I will focus on. So the first point is actions relating to projects of common interest with cross-border dimension. The reason we have proposed a separate CEF instrument is that we are firmly convinced that we need a centrally managed program to address cross-border sections because these sections are not prioritized when the allocation of funding is decided by Member States alone. We have seen that in the last example in the Recovery and Resilience Fund where only very limited amounts were dedicated to cross-border. So this is where the bulk of the money will be spent. But there are other elements that we need to address, for instance making the network more smart, which means that we need digital transport management systems. It needs to be more resilient. We have seen all the damage climate events have had on our network and we have to make it more sustainable, notably by ensuring the deployment of alternative fuels along the TEN-T network. We will also continue to work with third countries to better connect them in the immediate neighborhoods, of course having Ukraine and Moldova in mind. And as said, we will use the CEF for the dual use of transport infrastructure as one of the key objectives as well. So more generally, what are the main features of the future CEF? These are basically the main features we have in the current CEF. We have just tried to make it more flexible. This is necessary. We have seen that for instance in order to allow support to Ukraine with the CEF that was in place, we had to really stretch things in the regulation because these kinds of things were not anticipated or could not be anticipated in 2021 when CEF was adopted. So our view is that we need a more flexible framework. We also want to work more focused, more focused on cross-border and in a simpler way, facilitating also the life of our project promoters. All the well-functioning systems of the CEF2 will remain. That means direct management, a cost-based program, the use it or lose it principle which means that projects that are not advancing will return the money to the program and we will make it available to projects that are more mature and can be implemented faster. We will continue to work with work programs and allow for association of third countries. And then in terms of changes compared to the current CEF, I would like to flag that we have no longer a transfer from the Cohesion Fund to the Connecting Europe Facility's transport part but that we still have differentiated cofunding rates allowing notably seventy-five percent of cofunding for cohesion countries and sixty percent for outermost regions. With that, I pass to Joachim for the energy part.”
EU competences on defence · EU transport infrastructure integration · EU funding for transportation
- “Thank you very much. And all our excuses for the delay on our side. We are very pleased to be here and to present the first progress report on the implementation of the Connecting Europe Facility. The report is on substance finalized. We are in the last procedural stages and it will be published soon. But we are happy to provide here already the key elements of the content Hoping that it will be then publicly available very soon, as the chair has mentioned. The report covers the three sectors of the Connecting Europe facility transport, energy and digital. But here we will obviously focus on the transport part. Yes, I will start with the political context in which we have been working. So the regulation itself was adopted slightly late. So when the MFF started on the 1st of January 2021, our regulation was finally adopted only in July 2021. But then we picked up things very quickly. We have adopted a first work programme in the months following the adoption of the regulation, which allowed us to have a first call for proposal already on September 21st. The first work programme was quite important because here we planned ahead for three consecutive years, as foreseen in the self regulation, and this has been a large improvement compared to the previous self implementation. Because by clearly explaining in 2021 that we will allocate 70% of the total budget in the three first years, with 6 billion in each year available, we made it clear to project promoters that they should come when the project is the most mature. They should not apply because money is available. They should time the application in function of their maturity so that we can select projects which are really mature, able to implement and spend the money and make progress on the ground.”
EU support of rail transport · EU transport infrastructure integration · EU funding for transportation
- “Thank you very much. And thanks for all the the questions and comments. Um, first of all, of course. And this is coming through clearly in the questions. There's a strong link between the policy and the funding. And I think one of the key strengths of the Connecting Europe facility transport is that we have a very sound and solid policy, behind which is the Ten-t policy. This is thanks also to the new regulation that has been adopted here by the Parliament, together with the Council last year, and indeed the strengthened policy policy framework we are working in will help us in the implementation of the Ten-t and will also through the implementing acts that are indeed, in preparation, um, bring more stability into the planning and preparation of of projects, bringing these to to higher degrees of maturity, which then allows the CEF to come in with the funding and make the project happen. Um, so here the link is is clear. Um, but of course, let's say, um, all the corridors are important. I mean, there are nine of them, plus the two horizontal priorities. And in that sense, we are really working also from side closely with the coordinators based on the SF2. Their opinion is taken into account in the evaluation so that we are choosing the projects also in function of their real feedback from the ground, because they are, uh, visiting the countries, the regions, the ports, etc.”
EU support of rail transport · EU transport infrastructure integration · EU funding for transportation
- “Um, there was um, there were many questions also on on the focus on cross border or comments on that. And indeed it is quite a feature of our program. You are very well aware that this is not the only program investing into transport, and not the only one investing into transport infrastructure, but for sure it is the only one delivering on cross border. So when we look at what is happening in cohesion, what is happening under the Resilience and Recovery Fund. We see that there are many projects on the Ten-t network and this is very good and of course helpful. But we see also that the cross-border projects are not prioritized when a decision is in the capitals of the member states. So only by having a centrally mechanism for deciding where the money goes, we are able to prioritize in that manner the cross-border projects. And I think this is quite a key feature of the CEF. We have today. There were questions still on the oversubscription and where the oversubscription is the highest. I don't think that we can do that by transport mode, but what is striking is that there has been an unsubscription when it comes to the comprehensive network.”
Cohesion and rural funding · EU transport infrastructure integration · EU funding for transportation
- “And now we are targeting the megawatt charging for trucks in particular. A last slide then on the synergies, as this is an important part of the CEF and the three sectors working together. Um, here, I want to flag that the synergetic elements, which is a new flexibility introduced by the new Ten-t or by the new SF2 regulation, has been quite successful. We are using this, for instance, in the R5 projects where we are supporting also the generation of energy of hydrogen, for instance with the transport budget. So this kind of elements are working well also to flag that from digital side. They are deploying along our transport corridors, 5G, which is of course very good. I see that I'm slightly over time and unfortunately still have one slide which is about military mobility. Here again, my main message is that we have allocated this money very swiftly after the attack because there was no point in sitting on this money. It had to be used immediately to make our network much more able to carry the goods and persons needed for military mobility. You see that we have 96 projects across the EU to which these 1.7 billion were allocated. And of course, we see that there are many more needs still out there to make our network fit for military mobility. I stop here and I'm happy to take questions.”
EV charging infrastructure · EU support of rail transport · EU transport infrastructure integration
- “So this is what we planned in 2021. But of course things turned out differently as usual. Um, we had just the first call closed and started the evaluation when the Russian war against Ukraine started. This has led to several consequences, including inflation etc., which has made it important for us to further frontload the budget implementation. And this is why already in the mid of 2023, we adopted the second work programme, which allocated the rest of the remaining budget into two calls of 23 and 24. So this way we have been frontloading all the available budget. We come to the figures right now, but this was simply due to the fact that we have many mature projects in full implementation, in full swing, and we have these external factors which have led us to really make sure that the money is made available as quickly as possible to the project promoters so that they can implement. Also still to note that in 2023, Ukraine and Moldova were associated to the program, so that is a first for the Connecting Europe facility. And of course, in 24 the Ten-t regulation was adopted, which is the basis also for the last call which we are currently evaluating. On the next slide, you will see now what it means in budgetary terms. This frontloading of the implementation. So you see in dark blue at least that the parts which are already allocated are the majority of the funds. So 84% of the budget is already handed out or allocated in grant agreements to project promoters who can make progress on the on the ground and implement their projects. For the general envelope where we have 12.8 billion available. Um, there is only, let's say, 1 billion left, which is the small orange part, which is going to be allocated now in the evaluation of the last call, which was launched in 2024. In the cohesion envelope, which is in the middle, we have 11.3 billion in total here, 1.5 billion are remaining. Um, that will be allocated in the ongoing call. And you see in the military mobility envelope on the right that the whole of the 1.7 billion has been allocated already. We will come to that later on. You also see a small purple part, which is the budget that is still available in a call, which is still open. We come back to that as well, just to flag that. In total so far we have selected 631 31 projects out of 1454 applications. So it's less than 1 in 2 applications, which is successful in terms of budget. The oversubscription. So more money asked than being available. The oversubscription rate is of 2.8 on average so far in the implementation of the program. On the next slide, we want to show you that, um, the focus of self transport is really on sustainability in terms of climate tracking. We are achieving 79% of the budget that is allocated to climate objectives. This is the highest rate by far for any EU program in the current MFF. Um, how do we achieve this? By having a lot of investments on rail, which makes 86% out of this climate tracking and also the alternative fuels and waterborne projects which also contribute to the climate objectives directly.”
Russia-Ukraine conflict (10th term) · EU support of rail transport · EU funding for transportation
- “they know where the bottlenecks are and can tell us what are the important projects that should be prioritized when it comes to the funding. So this is a very helpful mechanism, this close link between the policy and the funding. There were many questions about the oversubscription. Indeed this is a problem because of course we would like to finance more projects. It is also a good thing because it allows us to have competition for the money. This really helps because projects are preparing better. They are putting much more effort in the quality of the application and in the project preparation, and that in the end, leads to projects which are then really going to happen in the implementation. So we are selecting only the most mature, the best quality project with the highest EU added value and are following them very, very closely with our executive agency and monitoring their progress and implementation. We are monitoring so closely that we then are taking out the money, which is not used by that project, which is to use it or lose it principle that is applied here as well. And this money, which is then flowing back into the budget, will allow us at some point to do some reflow calls.”
Cohesion and rural funding · EU funding for transportation
- “So this is coming at some point probably next year. But we have to see how many of such reflows will there be because again On average, the maturity of the projects in this cycle is much higher than we had in the previous cycle. There were questions on military mobility and how this breaks down and how this is prioritized. So here, um, one question was whether we would rather finance a comprehensive or rather the military mobility. The situation is the following. When we speak about military mobility, our general principles of the Ten-t policy do not really apply in the Ten-t policy. What we are trying is to bundle transports on main axes and have efficiency gains by putting transport together. When we speak with our military colleagues, they want diversity, diversification of routes, they want to have redundancies. And this is why when it comes to the military mobility calls, we do not prioritize the core network over the comprehensive network when it comes to military mobility. All the projects on the 20 be the comprehensive or core network are equally treated and can be equally important because the main assessment here is then to see what is also in it for the not the main, but a key assessment is whether this is important for military mobility. This is why we involve the EU military staff in the evaluation, so that we have a sound checking that these are indeed strategic projects for the military community.”
EU competences on defence · EU support of rail transport · EU transport infrastructure integration
- “There are more and more, um. There were a couple of questions, of course, about the next MFF and the expectations for that. I'm sorry that I will not be able to answer those. Uh, there will be different people able to, to present that. Um, but, um, one thing I wanted just to flag, because it was in particular mentioned when it comes to alternative fuel, you know, that the commission announced a sustainable transport infrastructure plan, which is planned to come in in the second half of this year, which will highlight how we want to go about this in particular, and also for the multimodality. It remains a very important aspect also for cross border because again, you do multimodal transport on long distance, which in Europe means cross border. And this will be addressed in particular also in the port strategy that is coming also soon and will look in more detail how we can make sure, um, as was mentioned in the last intervention as well, that the ports are delivering in the most efficient way, um, in all, um, geographical areas of Europe. I hope I've covered the main comments. Thank you very much.”
Decarbonisation of maritime transport · EV charging infrastructure · EU transport infrastructure integration
- “So in a self-regulation there are indicative allocations to comprehensive and to core network. We have made these amounts available according to the legal text. But member states have prioritized projects on the core network, so there have been less eager or let's say, projects on a comprehensive network have been less applying for the funding, which has helped to alleviate the pressure on the core network, because then we have transferred the money from the comprehensive network to the core network, which has allowed us to make more progress on the core network, which is, of course, in terms of timing, the higher priority because the 2030 deadline is approaching. Um, the cooperation with the different sectors was asked about as well. So again, we we have to be, um, careful on how we design these synergies. The first approach under step one was to have what is called project of common interest on energy side and on transport side. But when you overlap the maps it rarely matches. So if you are too strict on defining what energy project with what transport project can be combined to be a synergy project. It becomes close to impossible. This is why the more flexible approach where we are now supporting certain energy aspects like grid connections, like the production of hydrogen, etc. is a much more flexible approach, but it brings in the synergy that that we are looking for because indeed these sectors have to work hand in hand and things are getting closer.”
EU transport infrastructure integration · EU funding for transportation
- “Thank you very much for these questions and comments. I will start with the dual use and the question of military mobility. So the point is fully taken. When we were doing now military mobility under CEF Two, we had a very different approach than for the rest of the CEF budget because for instance we covered all the transport modes at equal level. So we didn't prioritize rail or inland waterways, roads and also airports were eligible and at the same level of priority as the other transport modes. So fully agreed on the importance of also to have a good motorway network to allow military mobility to happen and we know the problems with bridges, tunnels and so on that are happening there and which prevent good military mobility. However, when it comes to the eligibility, our approach has been the following. We have two conditions in geographical location. The one is the section has to be on the TEN-T network because the CEF is there to support the development of the TEN-T network and in addition the section has to be on the military mobility network that has been identified by the Council. Now ninety-five percent if not more of the military network are on the TEN-T network because the military are mainly using our main infrastructures. So in that sense that is very easy and allows us to support military mobility in a very large way. However, we are putting limits as well because we are saying that the infrastructure has to be dual use. So for instance access roads to military facilities are not used by civilians will not be eligible because there's the civilian aspect is missing. If there is a civilian use of the infrastructure and the military then we can come in with a dual use budget because that is exactly the type of infrastructure we can then support for the benefit of the civilian side and of the military side. When it comes to the cross-border projects indeed these are the focus point of the Connecting Europe Facility. This is the reason why we have proposed it. You can see that in the annex we also flag several projects on the comprehensive network. So indeed here we are not neglecting that side of the TEN-T network on the contrary again cross-border is the priority of the CEF Three even more than we had beforehand. On the involvement of regions what I would like to underline is that many of our projects are there because the regions are driving the process. This is very typical because again the cross-border infrastructure is neglected by the Member State at national level very often and so we are teaming up with the regions in order to push these projects forward and our support is crucial so that the regions can get this kind of infrastructure and the benefit from the economic development that comes along with that. So indeed we are very happy to work very closely with the regions and making sure that they are well served in infrastructure as well and well connected to the rest of the network. The last comment I took note of was the complementarity between the NRPP and the CEF. Indeed this is very important to us. As I said, CEF will focus on the cross-border side and we expect the NRPP then to complement on the national sections of the TEN-T network. We should bear in mind that cohesion funds today have allocated or Member States have allocated over one hundred billion to TEN-T and transport infrastructure so we expect that this should continue and again we see the highest benefit if this money is used for TEN-T projects and in combination then with our cross-border support. We have a very complementary approach to cover the whole of the TEN-T network in order to make it happen by 2030, '40 and '50 as I lined out.”
EU competences on defence · EU transport infrastructure integration · EU funding for transportation
- “Thank you very much. Good evening. Um, I would come in on the side of transport infrastructure in particular. I think it was very well reflected here in the discussion as the challenges are huge, huge to make our network fit for military mobility. This is indeed because for a long time, infrastructure has been developed and built without taking into account the military views and needs. And by having initiated this initiative on military mobility, we have brought the two communities of transport planning and of the military side back together again. And this is very important. The challenge is huge, but we have a better framework than we had in the current MFF because we have made progress. On the policy definition side, we have identified the military mobility corridors, which are overlapping to 99% with the TNT network, so the military mobility corridors developing them will indeed help the development of the TNT network. We are keen to make best of this dual use approach and have a very focused approach with that. The intention is to keep CAF really focused on infrastructure. We have seen some amendments also, um, foreseeing to go beyond that, but I think, as was mentioned, we have to make use of all the instruments available. And CAF is only one part of the MFF proposals, um, with a reinforced budget for infrastructure.”
Relations with NATO · EU competences on defence · EU transport infrastructure integration
- “For sure. This will allow us in central management to ensure that there is good coordination. It is not sufficient to fix one bridge in one country. We will have to fix bridges along a corridor so that the train and the trucks can, uh, go from point A to Z. So this will be possible with CEF in particular, but there will be other projects that will fit very well into the national envelopes and other aspects which fall into the Competitiveness Fund framework with the defence window there. Um, so in um, in substance, we, we, we have done a lot of groundwork also with the identification of the hotspots. Um, that will help us to really make sure, because we are coordinating closely with the military community to ensure that we are not, uh, doing which is sometimes called military washing, that now any project becomes a military project, so to say. We are checking each time that there is really an added value from the military side. The added value from the civilian side is ensured by having these projects on the TNT network. So I think we are very happy with the way the report is drafted and the the broad lines that were discussed here. And we're looking forward to the final report. Thank you.”
EU support of rail transport · EU transport infrastructure integration · EU funding for transportation
- “Um, which are those receiving a grant above €500 million? So these are really the, uh, the main or the the biggest projects or the biggest grant receiver, uh, that we have. So these include Robotica Fermin belt, Zenescope, Porto, Lisbon, Lyon-turin, the Brenner Base Tunnel, Bucharest, Giorgio Russo, but also the solidarity lanes, which are gathered here together. So following again the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, the CEF has been mobilized and shown its flexibility by allocating substantive amounts to projects which are better connecting Ukraine and Moldova to the rest of the Ten-t network and preparing the ground for their future accession. I also wanted to quickly highlight the Alternative fuel infrastructure facility. On the next slide, um, because, um, we have allocated substantial amounts of the CEF into this, um, here we are deploying, um, charging station and power supply. Also decarbonization activities in airports. It is a particular instrument because the grant is conditional on the project having a loan. So this is how we ensure that blending is happening. Attracting private money into our projects, which we know is important because the public support will be never sufficient. We are working very closely with promotional banks across Europe who are supporting the efforts here. And on the next slide, you will see that when it comes, for instance, to charging stations, we have been quite successful in deploying across the network, making sure that there are no gaps on the road network of the Ten-t, and it has been successful to such a degree that, for instance, when it comes to the 150 kilowatt chargers, we have stopped supporting because the objectives of a minimum coverage along the Ten-t has been largely achieved.”
Decarbonisation of aviation sector · EV charging infrastructure · EU support of rail transport