Open Letter - Transport sector calls for a stronger EU transport budget to ensure resilience and competitiveness

45 European transport organisations, including ERFA, are joining forces and collectively urge national governments to strengthen European funding for transport under the future EU budget and particularly to increase the budget of the future Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) to at least €100 billion.

A robust European transport network is of crucial importance in responding to Europe’s strategic objectives. Only with strong and state-of-the-art transport infrastructure at its core, will Europe be able to ramp up its resilience and military preparedness, reinforce its industrial competitiveness and safeguard its supply chain sovereignty. The sector stands ready to deliver but cannot do so without adequate support.

While the ambitions and the investment needs are high, the sector continues to struggle with pressing underfunding and financing gaps. This trend of continued underfunding of the transport sector must be reversed, and the EU Member States must set the bar high.

As such, if Europe is to succeed in its strategic priorities of a strong, resilient and competitive Union, it needs a robust European transport network providing the necessary fundament. This must be reflected in the future EU budget.

With another round of discussions on the Multi-Annual Financial Framework (MFF) for 2028-2034 coming up during the General Affairs Council taking place on 24 February, all the signatory European transport organisations in an open letter ask the General Affairs and Finance Ministers to safeguard sufficient EU budget for transport under the future MFF and particularly strengthen the future CEF instrument. European support to the sector is now more pertinent than ever.

For private and independent rail freight operators, CEF has been a crucial instrument to ensure a European vision and a corridor approach when investing into rail infrastructure, especially as half of the rail freight traffic is cross-border.

ERFA Acting Secretary General, Josselin Petit, concluded, “an expanded CEF is essential for rail freight to invest in key freight parameters (740-m trains, 22,5t axle load), adapt the network to military needs, and deploy on-board and trackside ERTMS.”

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