Connecting Europe Facility

The CEF (Connecting Europe Facility) is the financing instrument for the Transeuropean Networks for Transport, Energy and Telecommunications. For the new financing period, the Commission has proposed to allocate € 50 bn - out of which € 31.6 bn for transport infrastructure (including € 10 bn ring fenced from the Cohesion fund), € 9.1 bn for Energy and € 9.2 bn for telecommunications. This is a new approach placing all three TEN sectors under one single financing umbrella which is centrally managed by the Commission (the administrative tasks to be externalised most probably to the TEN-T EA). The Commission thereby hopes to create some synergies between the three sectors in order to lower administrative costs. The management of the CEF will be based on:

• Competitive calls for proposals (or beneficiaries identified in the work programme) for the allocation of funding;
• 'Use it or lose it principle' to ensure effective implementation;

Implementation of projects (procurement, etc) remains under the responsibility of beneficiaries and Member States. Part of the CEF money will be dedicated to innovative financial instruments such as project bonds in partnership with financial intermediaries like EIB (for TRAN roughly € 2bn for Energy € 1 bn). Rapporteurs: ITRE: Adina-Ioana VĂLEAN (ALDE, RO); TRAN: Dominique RIQUET (EPP, FR), Inés AYALA SENDER (S&D, ES) Shadows: ITRE: Antonio CANCIAN (EPP, IT), Mario PIRILLO (S&D, IT), Claude TURMES (Verts/ALE, LU), Konrad SZYMAŃSKI (ECR, PL) TRAN: Philippe DE BACKER (ALDE, BE), Michael CRAMER (Verts/ALE, DE), Roberts ZĪLE (ECR, LV), Sabine WILS (GUE/NGL, DE)