The European Commission (EC) unveiled the first edition of the progress report on the implementation of the funds coming from the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF). One of the standouts of the report was the disparity between the submitted and accepted proposals, highlighting the persisting need for massive funds, especially in the transport segment.
The report covers the 2021-2024 period and can be considered as a halfway report, since this CEF round will last until 2027 with 33,7 billion euros. CEF allocates funds for projects in the transport, energy and digital sectors. CEF Transport got the largest slice of the pie with 25,8 billion euros in total. Between 2021 and 2023, 21,5 billion euros have already been unlocked. Rail is the main beneficiary, obtaining 15,3 billion euros.
CEF Transport: most projects don’t make it
Despite the massive mobilisation of funds and the undeniable importance of a mechanism such as CEF, it is worth to note that the majority of the proposals were not accepted. As the report from the Commission highlighted, 631 out of 1,454 eligible proposals were accepted, a little over 43%. The requests for funds followed a similar trend, with 56,8 billion euros requested and 21,5 billion euros allocated (37,9%).
The CEF Transport package is divided into four categories: general, cohesion, Alternative Fuels Infrastructure Facility (AFIF) and military mobility. Most of the requests came from the general category: 909 submitted and 299 accepted with 9,5 billion euros allocated in face of the 30,7 billion requested. Projects under the cohesion label received a similar amount, nine billion euros (19,6 requested), but for less than half the number of projects (109 accepted out of 214 submitted).
The two final categories, AFIF and military mobility, received smaller portions but the rejection rate and discrepancies between requests and allocation were less outstanding. AFIF received 1,7 billion euros out of the two requested, financing 167 projects out of the 191 proposed. Military mobility was assigned 1,7 billion euros despite requests for five billion euros. Many projects were rejected in this case, with only 95 out of 186 being accepted.
CEF Energy and CEF Digital
The CEF funds for energy projects are divided into two groups: energy infrastructure projects (PCI) and cross-border cooperation in renewable energy (CB RES). Between 2021 and 2024, 21 PCI proposals were accepted out of 121 requests, with 3,5 billion euros allocated out of 7 requested. For CB RED, 14 out of 18 projects were admitted for 91 million euros (118 requested). For CEF Digital, 128 proposals were accepted after 184 requests were submitted between 2021 and 2023, with 684 million euros allocated of the two billion requested.
