EU Transport Council meeting on the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF)

The regulation determines the conditions, methods and procedures for the Union's financial contribution to TEN projects. It will replace the existing legal bases for TEN funding.

In June this year, the Council agreed a partial general approach on the CEF (11236/12) which did not include the financial provisions, pending the negotiations on the new Financial Regulation and on the multi-annual financial framework (MFF) for the years 2014-2020.

Items relating to the ongoing MFF negotiations, however, are still open, including the amounts allocated under the CEF, the amount to be transferred from the Cohesion Fund, and the question of whether value added tax should be an eligible cost for grants under the CEF.

Other outstanding issues concern the provisions on financial aid through the use of innovative financial instruments such as project bonds, designed to leverage additional investment from private and public sources.

Video coverage of the event will be available for preview and download in broadcast quality (MPEG4) on www.eucouncil.tv