The death of CEF? EU ‘threatening to terminate’ dedicated multi-billion euro transport fund

The European Commission could terminate the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF), the EU’s multi-billion-euro transport fund, sources with knowledge of the plans have exclusively confirmed to our sister publication RailTech.com. The prospect of losing tens of billions in dedicated rail funding has already sparked a quiet backlash from industry leaders and governments. Here’s what’s happening, why the EU executive is considering the move, and why the rail sector is so alarmed.

Insiders with knowledge of the potential policy changes in EU funding have told RailTech that the Commission is considering ending the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) and merging it with other funding bodies as part of a single EU Competitiveness Fund. If such a decision were made, it would represent a significant blow to European rail investment, with the sector having to compete in a much more aggressive way against other industries to secure funding.

To understand what’s at stake, the CEF is the EU’s primary tool for funding transport, energy, and digital infrastructure, and is divided into those three sectors. Since 2014, it has allocated 37.5 billion euros to over 1,500 transport projects, with rail receiving a major share. In 2023 alone, rail projects secured 5.7 billion euros, making up 80 per cent of the total 7 billion euros awarded under CEF Transport.

Without CEF, major rail projects like Rail Baltica – set to integrate the Baltic States into the European network – may never have materialised; it has already received 2.6 billion euros in EU funding via the mechanism. Similarly, 5.5 billion euros from CEF has been allocated for the Lyon–Turin Railway, a 57.5-kilometre base tunnel connecting France and Italy under the Alps.

Without dedicated EU transport funding, such long-term, cross-border rail projects may struggle to get off the ground. That includes Europe’s costly ERTMS rollout. More immediately, scrapping CEF could delay or even cancel ongoing rail projects, upending EU governments’ infrastructure plans and the Commission’s commitments to sustainable transport. So, how real is the threat of CEF disappearing?

The devil is in the detail

According to RailTech’s sources, there is a real possibility that CEF, as well as a range of other funding programmes across the entire EU budget, may be discontinued…