Infrastructures : Romania to be involved in two of the nine major European transportation corridors announced by the EC

The two infrastructure projects to involve Romania are related to the Rhine-Danube and Orient/East-Mediterranean corridors and are part of the nine major corridors which will act as a backbone for transportation in Europe's single market and revolutionise East-West connections.

The first of these corridors, the Rhine-Danube, will have a main axe represented by the navigation routes of the Main and Danube rivers and it will connect the central regions around Strasbourg and Frankfurt via Southern Germany to Vienna, Bratislava, Budapest and finally the Black Sea, with an important branch from Munich to Prague, Zilina, Kosice and the Ukrainian border. The corridor will also include, according to the map published by the EC, the Romanian cities of Timisoara, Arad, Brasov, Bucharest, Craiova, Sulina and Constanta.

The Orient-East-Med Corridor will connect the maritime interfaces of the North, Baltic, Black and Mediterranean Seas, allowing optimising the use of the ports concerned and the related Motorways of the Sea. Including Elbe as inland waterway, it will improve the multimodal connections between Northern Germany, the Czech Republic, the Pannonian region and Southeast Europe. It extends, across the sea, from Greece to Cyprus. These corridor will also include access infrastructures to the the Romanian cities of Timisoara, Arad and Craiova.

In order to ensure the necessary investments for the construction of these nine major corridors, the EU will triple the financing for its transport infrastructure over 2014-2020, up to 26 billion euros.

EU grants of almost €1.6 billion to support key TEN-T infrastructure projects

The European Commission has selected a total of 172 projects that will benefit from almost €1.6 billion in EU co-financing from the trans-European transport network (TEN-T) Programme for improving transport infrastructure across Europe. 89 projects selected from the 2012 Multi-Annual Call and 83 from the 2012 Annual Call will use this financial support to help realise TEN-T network development – ranging from preliminary studies for new projects to top-up grants aimed to help assist on-going construction initiatives, in all transport modes.

Commission Vice-President Siim Kallas, responsible for transport, noted: "Trans-European networks in transport are some of the best examples of the value the EU can bring to its Member States. A well-functioning network is essential to the smooth operation of the single market and will boost competitiveness. These projects will also assist Europe in moving to a more sustainable future and allow the same market access to all our regions."

The 2012 Multi-Annual Programme Call provided €1.348 billion of funding to projects financing the highest priorities of the TEN-T network, focusing on six modal areas:

1. Air Traffic Management (ATM) - 3 projects selected, €58.8 million in funding

2. European Rail Traffic Management System (ERTMS) - 14 projects selected, €68.33 million in funding

3. Intelligent Transport Systems/European Electronic Toll System (ITS/EETS) - 2 projects selected, €3.58 million in funding

4. Motorways of the Sea (MoS) - 13 projects selected, €169.37 million in funding

5. River Information Services (RIS) - 4 projects selected, €3.43 million in funding

6. Priority Projects (PPs) - 53 projects selected (39 new projects, 14 ongoing projects), €1.044 billion in funding

The 2012 Annual Programme Call gave financing for a large number of smaller projects covering the different modes of transport. This Call granted €247.20 million in total funding in four main priority areas:

1. Priority 1 - Acceleration/facilitation of the implementation of TEN-T projects (inland waterways, multimodal, maritime, rail, road) – 67 projects selected, €211.36 million in funding

2. Priority 2 - Measures to promote innovation and new technologies for transport infrastructure - 6 projects selected, €13.74 million in funding

3. Priority 3 - Support to Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) and innovative financial instruments: 3 projects selected, €5.75 million in funding

4. Priority 4 - Support to the long term implementation of the TEN-T, in particular corridors: 7 projects selected, €16.35 million in funding

The individual funding Decisions will be gradually adopted by the European Commission during the months of October and December 2013. In the framework of the TEN-T days 2013 in Tallinn, 32 of these individual Decisions will be handed over to the Ministers and Secretaries of State that will be present.

The projects will be monitored by the TEN-T Executive Agency, working together with the project beneficiaries across the Member States and under the auspices of the Directorate-General for Mobility and Transport of the European Commission.

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