An open letter that has been signed by 45 European transport organizations has asked for the future EU budget to go ahead and have in it more funding for the sector, which included an increase when it comes to the Connecting Europe Facility to a minimum of €100bn.
The letter states that only with robust and state-of-the-art transport infrastructure at its centre, Europe is going to be able to ramp up its resilience along with military preparedness and also reinforce its industrial competitiveness in addition to safeguarding its sovereignty in the supply chain in the face of the growing geopolitical and geo-economic tensions along with the ongoing climate change.
The February 19, 2025 letter with signatories that come from the Association of European Rail Rolling Stock Lessors, CER, EIM, ERFA, the Federation of European Train Drivers’ Unions, the European Transport Workers’ Federation, UIRR, UIP, UITP, and UNIFE calls on the European Commission as well as the member states to act now in order to strengthen and also upgrade the infrastructure of Europe, address any bottlenecks along with missing links, make utmost use of its connectivity along with capacity, and also reinforce its safety, resilience, and preparedness when it comes to adaptations pertaining to climate change.
It opines that infrastructure happens to be insufficiently adapted to the civilian and military usage and that the present geopolitical spectrum indeed underscores the requirement to prepare for just-in-case and not the just-in-time strategies, needing redundancy along with buffer capacity to make sure of the continuation of the supply of goods apart from the movement of people so as to benefit the economy and society of Europe.
The letter further adds that the projects having high societal added value do not generate the required financial returns every time, and hence the EU grants are indeed essential in order to support projects that in a way support the strategic objectives but at the same time face those not-preferred funding gaps.
It opines that the Connecting Europe Facility is indeed a very successful instrument that supports and also prioritizes investments pertaining to European added value; however, it has been undermined due to a structural and prominent oversubscription of the calls because of insufficient budget.
According to the signatories, the transport sector indeed stands ready to roll out, but it cannot do so unless it has the right amount of support.
