EU Transport sector campaign on the review of the MFF: More EU Budget for Transport, The Best Investment Plan for Europe
29 European transport organisations, representing infrastructure managers, operators, and users in the maritime, inland waterways, railways and air sector, are again joining efforts in a campaign to urge the European Parliament and the Council to increase the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) budget in the upcoming review of the Multi-Annual Financial Framework. This will allow to enhance the role of transport as an enabler of economic growth and jobs, currently giving jobs to 20 million persons and accounting for 10% of total EU employment, and to represent the right move towards the Trans-European Network for Transport (TEN-T) completion, creating additional jobs and economic growth.
The CEF total budget was initially 31 billion euros (2,8% of the overall MFF) but the sector is left with 2 billion euro until 2020. CEF calls experienced a massive oversubscription of three times the amount proposed and, for this reason, a high number of high-quality projects in the transport sector were rejected due to insufficient EU budget. Moreover, economic pressures have put a significant strain on national budgets, leading to a historic low level of public investments. EU economy cannot afford not completing TEN-T: non-completion of TEN-T will cause around 3.2 billion EUR GDP loss and 11 million job-years not created. This is an unbearable risk for current and future growth and jobs.
Nicolette van der Jagt, Director General of CLECAT said: ‘With this campaign, the European transport sector is asking for the necessary means to make the TEN-T network, a smart and well thought transport infrastructure plan for Europe, a reality. There is not a moment to lose if one wants to preserve and boost the competitiveness of European economy.’