CEF - Connecting Europe Facility
The Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) is a key EU instrument to promote growth, jobs and competitiveness through targeted infrastructure investment at European level.
It is divided into 3 sectors:
The Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) for Transport is the funding instrument to realise European transport infrastructure policy. It aims at supporting investments in building new transport infrastructure in Europe or rehabilitating and upgrading the existing one.
CEF Transport focuses on cross-border projects and projects aiming at removing bottlenecks or bridging missing links in various sections of the Core Network and on the Comprehensive Network (link), as well as for horizontal priorities such as traffic management systems.
CEF Transport also supports innovation in the transport system in order to improve the use of infrastructure, reduce the environmental impact of transport, enhance energy efficiency and increase safety.
The total budget for CEF Transport is €24.05 billion for the the period 2014-2020. INEA is responsible for implementing €23.7 of the CEF Transport budget in the forms of grants during the same period.
The EU’s energy infrastructure is aging and, in its current state, not suited to match future demand for energy, to ensure security of supply or to support large-scale deployment of energy from renewable sources. The upgrading of existing, and development of new energy transmission infrastructures of European importance will require investments of about €140 billion in electricity and at least €70 billion in gas.
Despite the regulatory measures and policies that are currently put in place to facilitate such investments, under current market and regulatory conditions some energy projects are not commercially viable and would normally not make it into investment programmes of infrastructure developers.
CEF is engineered to address both groups of factors behind the investment gap in the energy sector. Financial instruments, by bringing in new classes of investors and mitigating certain risks, will help project promoters to access the necessary financing for their projects. Grants to contribute to the construction costs will be applied to fill in the gaps in commercial viability of the projects that are particularly relevant for Europe.
A total budget of €5.35 billion is made available for energy projects for the 2014-2020 period, of which €4.8 in the form of grants managed by INEA.
The Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) in Telecom is a key EU instrument to facilitate cross-border interaction between public administrations, businesses and citizens, by deploying digital service infrastructures (DSIs) and broadband networks. Supported projects will contribute to the creation of a European ecosystem of interoperable and interconnected digital services that sustain the Digital Single Market.
A €1.04 billion budget is earmarked for trans-European digital services for 2014-2020.
