EU Commission to invest €700M in greener transport
The European Commission has proposed to invest 695.1 million euros in 49 projects aiming to develop a more sustainable transport infrastructure in Europe. Funding includes all transport modes, from airports and ports to rail and roads, here with a nod to electric cars.
The aim is to decarbonise transport in Europe. EU Commissioner for Transport, Violeta Bulc said they “are proposing to invest €700 million in 49 key transport projects through the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF)”. She then called for “low-emission mobility across Europe” that includes battery-electric and fuel cell vehicles naturally.
The largest part of the funding will be devoted to infrastructure such as railway network, maritime connections and air traffic management. However, over €250 million of CEF funding will be invested in 26 projects dedicated to developing new technologies in transport notably promoting alternative fuels. Among the selected projects are greening the maritime transport link between Swinoujscie port in Poland and Ystad port in Sweden; deploying hydrogen public transport infrastructure in Denmark, the UK and Latvia; developing zero-emission public transport services for Amsterdam airport, as well as electrifying urban and regional bus routes in Croatia, Italy, Slovenia and Slovakia.
An additional €450 million is made available to finance alternative fuel infrastructure through the InnovFin Energy Demo Projects (EDP) and CEF Debt Instrument. They are managed by the European Investment Bank.
Under the CEF programme, €23.2 billion is available for grants from the EU’s 2014-2020 budget to co-fund TEN-T projects in EU Member States. Since 2014, the first CEF programming year, there have been four yearly waves of calls. In total, CEF has so far supported 641 projects with a total amount of €22.3 billion.
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