FIEC calls for greater transport spending for Europe

The FIEC, which represents Europe’s contracting firms, is calling for greater spending on developing the transportation network. According to the FIEC, a stronger EU budget for transport is of importance for the European economy. An official statement said, “On its own, completing the TEN-T network will create 10 million extra jobs by 2030. State-of-the art transport infrastructure is also an investment in long-term growth and jobs. Investing €750 billion could generate € 4,551 billion additional GDP.” The
October 7, 2019 Read time: 2 mins

The FIEC, which represents Europe’s contracting firms, is calling for greater spending on developing the transportation network. According to the FIEC, a stronger EU budget for transport is of importance for the European economy. An official statement said, “On its own, completing the TEN-T network will create 10 million extra jobs by 2030. State-of-the art transport infrastructure is also an investment in long-term growth and jobs. Investing €750 billion could generate € 4,551 billion additional GDP.”

The Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T) policy aims to remove bottlenecks, address missing links, improve interoperability among different transport modes and among regional and national transport infrastructure and integrating urban areas into the network. Established by the Treaty of Maastricht, its last revision was in 2013. The 2013 Regulation differentiates etween a comprehensive and a core network - the former including remote areas, the latter containing corridors of “highest strategic importance”. According to the Regulation, the core network should be completed by 2030 while the comprehensive network should be established in 2050.

In order to foster investment in the TEN-T and to meet the policy’s objectives, a specific funding instrument, the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF), was established in 2013. Regrettably, the CEF is currently strongly under financed. Since 2017, three years before its end, the CEF budget for transport has all been used. The demand for CEF funds has exceeded the available resources by around 150%. If the CEF transport budget does not increase in 2021-2027, the completion of the core network is at risk due to insufficient budget. In fact, the completion of the core network by 2030 requires more than €750 billion.

Finance & Funding

Related Content

  • Infrastructure needs for Europe
    June 19, 2012
    The European Construction Industry Federation (FIEC) is calling on the European Governments to recognise the importance of investing in infrastructure. The FIEC says it recognises the challenging economic climate and the need for governments to cut unsustainable levels of public debt. But FIEC president Luisa Todini commented, “Austerity is however not a solution by itself.” Europe’s transport, energy and telecommunication networks are the backbone of the EU internal market, ensuring that goods and services
    Read More
  • Investing in East Africa's road sector to boost economic development
    April 14, 2020
    Investments in East Africa’s road sector are helping drive economic development as well as political stability
    Read More
  • Julián Núñez, head of ASECAP offers a little Spanish enlightenment
    May 1, 2018
    Julián Núñez, president of ASECAP, gets his teeth into the vision of a European strategy for toll roads. David Arminas reports from Madrid Getting European politicians to agree to a long-term cross-border highway infrastructure programme for toll roads is extremely difficult. It’s a bit like pulling teeth. People want to avoid the pain. This is perhaps a bad analogy to use in the case of Julián Núñez, president of ASECAP - European Association of Operators of Toll Road Infrastructures. Núñez had just sat
    Read More
  • Wacker Neuson reports strong financial performance
    August 9, 2018
    Munich-based Wacker Neuson is reporting a substantial increase in revenue and profitability for the first six months of 2018. According to the firm’s latest results, revenue is at a record high and there has been a marked improvement in profit before interest and tax. However bottlenecks among suppliers as well as currency developments have had a dampening effect on the results. Revenue for the first half of 2018 rose 8% to a new record high of €825 million, compared with €764 million for the same period i
    Read More

Highlighted Content