Skip to main content

EU investment fund ‘important for transport’

The new EU Commissioner for Transport, Violeta Bulc, said that the US$392 billion investment fund unveiled by President Juncker last week will have big significance for the transport sector. In a speech today to the Committee on Transport and Tourism at the European Parliament, Ms Bulc said that the new European Fund for Strategic Investment set up with the European Investment Bank (EIB) offers new opportunities to finance transport needs, particularly in urban mobility. “Investment needs in urban mob
December 19, 2014 Read time: 2 mins
The new EU Commissioner for Transport, Violeta Bulc, said that the US$392 billion investment fund unveiled by President Juncker last week will have big significance for the transport sector.

In a speech today to the Committee on Transport and Tourism at the European Parliament, Ms Bulc said that the new European Fund for Strategic Investment set up with the 4270 European Investment Bank (EIB) offers new opportunities to finance transport needs, particularly in urban mobility.

“Investment needs in urban mobility are massive since they are generating most of the traffic and most of the emissions,” she told the Committee. “The infrastructure and the fleets for new collective transport systems, to make our cities smarter, need to be put in place.”

Ms Bulc said that more investment was needed for cleaner modes of transport, particularly at borders, to have a unified and more efficient European transport system and to bring it into the 21st century.

She said: “Intelligent Transport Systems should be deployed at European level to make the best use of the existing and future infrastructure and to develop a transport system which is at the service of the users— citizens and companies.”

The new fund, Ms Bulc emphasised, will complement and not substitute financial instruments already in place, such as the Connecting Europe Facility, the Cohesion and EIB loans. It will also target more ‘risky’ transport projects not currently funded by the EIB.

Related Content

  • European transport groups push for priority in EU budget
    April 4, 2024
    Europe must 'reverse the trend of continued underfunding of the transport sector'
  • Asecap Days delves beneath the surface of tolling
    August 8, 2017
    Colin Sowman picks his highlights from Asecap’s 45th annual Study and Information Days in Paris. European tolling association Asecap holds annual Study & Information Days, provides delegates with updates on the latest moves and thinking in the tolling sector and is a key meeting place for concessionaires from 22 countries. The importance of road transport to the French economy was highlighted by the country’s director general of transport infrastructures, François Poupard, in the opening session. He told th
  • US ushers in reforms with new transportation bill
    November 9, 2012
    On behalf of ITS America, Paul Feenstra maps out implications and opportunities for the ITS industry. A critical milestone was reached last month when the US Congress passed, and President Obama signed, legislation reauthorising the nation’s surface transportation programmes, breaking a nearly three-year log-jam which had stymied critical transportation reforms and delayed much-needed infrastructure projects. The law, numbered P.L. 112-141 but known as MAP-21 (Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century),
  • US infrastructure: once in a lifetime
    April 23, 2021
    Expectations are sky-high for Amtrak Joe and Mayor Pete as they use infrastructure spending to rebuild the US economy post-Covid – and ITS firms should be able to get a share...