T&E deputy-director Nina Renshaw said: ‘This decision is a wrong turn. Any EU money that’s available for transport infrastructure must be directed towards schemes which offer emissions reductions – given the long lifespan of transport infrastructure, anything else would lock Europe in to high-emissions transport until well beyond 2050.’
Ministers’ call for road funding defies CEF agreement
EU transport ministers have contradicted the Commission’s transport infrastructure funding proposals by calling for some of the money to be diverted to road projects. The Connecting Europe Facility (CEF), which replaces the fund for the trans-European transport networks (TEN-T), was put forward last year, with one of its main aims to help the EU achieve its target of reducing greenhouse gases by 60% between 1990 and 2050. For that reason, the Commission had proposed to concentrate funding on rail, intermodal and port projects.