eira:body | This regulation establishes the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF). The facility sets the conditions, methods and procedures for providing funding to support projects of interest to the European Union (EU) in the transport, telecommunications and energy infrastructure sectors. It seeks to speed up investment in trans-European networks and to leverage funding from the public and private sectors. It also sets out the amount of money to be made available from 2014 until 2020 and for which areas. Helping to create sustainable economic growth The European Commission sees creating efficient transport and energy infrastructure networks as a key way to boost growth and strengthen confidence in the EU’s single market. In particular, the CEF will support projects that aim to develop and build new infrastructure and services or upgrade existing infrastructure and services. One of its general objectives is to contribute to economic growth by developing modern and high-performing trans-European networks that take into account expected future traffic flows. Another general objective is to help the EU reach its sustainable development targets (20 % cut in greenhouse gas emissions compared to 1990 levels, 20 % increase in energy efficiency and raising the share of renewable energy to 20 % by 2020). Transport sector to be the biggest beneficiary The total budget for the CEF from 2014 to 2020 comes to around EUR 33 billion. Of this, around EUR 26 billion will be spent on the transport sector, around EUR 1 billion on the telecommunications sector and around EUR 6 billion on the energy sector. An evaluation report of the CEF will be presented to the European Parliament and EU Member States no later than 31 December 2017. |