On the 15^th of November 2017, the European Transport “ecosystem” came together in Strasbourg for the conference on the next Multi Financial Framework for Transport: Investing to connect Europe. Representatives from the European Parliament, the European Commission, the Council of Europe, TENT-T coordinators and stakeholder organizations and federations (including the European Cyclists’ Federation) were present to hear about the results of the almost completely allocated (93%) Connecting Europe Facility Programme and the ambition for the level of investment in future funding programmes for Transport.

A range of high level European policy makers were invited to the stage in Strasbourg: Vice-President of the European Commission Maroš Šefčovič, European Commissioner for Transport Violeta Bulc, Vice-President of the European Parliament Mairead McGuiness, Chair of the TRAN Committee at the European Parliament Karima Delli and many more. They all agreed that Europe needs a modern, efficient, climate friendly and connected transport system to achieve all of its objectives. According to European Commissioner for Transport Violeta Bulc, these goals will be empowered by decarbonisation, digitalisation, investment, people’s benefits, innovation and global leadership.

Karin De Schepper, Director of Inland Navigation Europe, that is also a member of the CEF Transport coalition, a cooperation between all major transport stakeholders from the road, rail, aviation, waterways and cycling sector, addressed the European delegates with the shared CEF Transport coalition’s mission which is calling for more European funding for Transport in future European budgets. “Imagine a world without transport”, said Mrs. De Schepper, "which would be quite hard since almost 20 million people of 10% of the European work force is employed by the transport sector. Transport is embedded in two of the fundamental principles op the European Treaty: free movement of goods and people. We need to keep investing in our transport system in order to achieve our decarbonisation goals. European grants will remain crucial to complete the investments in our transport system."

Within the Commission’s Cohesion policy (the Cohesion Fund and the European Regional Development Fund, so far 70 billion EUR has been programmed to finance transport investments in 2014-2020. An amount of 1.5 BN EUR from this global amount has been identified as an investment in cycle tracks and footpaths.

​To complete the core TEN-T network (in which the European Cyclists’ Federation would like to see cycling included as a separate mode of transport) an amount of 750 Billion EUR of grants are still needed. The coming months will be crucial in the discussion on the next MFF in transport, as the European Commission will begin to reach its final conclusions before presenting the finalized Mobility Package in the Spring of 2018.

Read more about the joint initiative on more EU budget for Transport from the Members of the CEF Transport coalition: