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On 3 March, the European Commission approved, under EU State aid rules, aid schemes for Italy and the Czech Republic, in support of intermodal freight. In Italy, the focus lies in incentivising companies to use more rail, whilst in the Czech Republic, the aid focuses on constructing and upgrading combined transport terminals.

The Italian scheme, aimed at encouraging freight traffic to shift from road to rail and to waterborne transport in the region of Friuli Venezia Giulia, has an overall budget of €30 million and will run until 31 December 2027. The aid will be granted in the form of direct grants to logistics companies and multimodal transport operators that combine a rail and waterborne leg as an alternative to road-only transport. The amount of aid that eligible beneficiaries can receive is based on the reduction in the external costs (pollution, noise, congestion and accidents) achieved by rail and waterborne transport, compared to road transport, as well as on the distance covered by the services. Higher amounts of aid may be granted to support intermodal services within the region, which mostly concern the transport of iron slabs over very short distances, where the road-only alternative is significantly cheaper but still results in considerably higher pollution, noise, congestion and numbers of accidents. The scheme follows two previous aid measures (SA.18169, approved on 22 March 2006 and twice prolonged under SA.29788 on 10 June 2010 and SA.45606 on 18 July 2016; SA.50115, approved on 20 December 2018) which both expired in 2021. More information will be available on the Commission's competition website, in the public case register under the case number SA.100286 once confidentiality issues have been resolved.

The Czech scheme, supporting the construction and upgrade of combined transport terminals, follows a previous aid scheme, approved by the Commission in August 2015 (SA.39962), covering the period between 1 January 2015 and 31 December 2020. The budget of the scheme, which was re-introduced until 31 December 2027, will amount to €68.7 million (CZK 1.7 billion), i.e. the remaining budget from the previous scheme. All other conditions of the scheme remain the same. The non-confidential version of the decision will be made available under the case number SA.100031 in the State aid register on the Commission's competition website once any confidentiality issues have been resolved.

Source: European Commission