Regulamentul privind Mecanismul pentru interconectarea Europei 2028-2034
Opinion factsheet
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Opinion number:
CDR-3311-2025
Status:
Adoptat
Objective
The opinion aims to ensure that the new Connecting Europe Facility (CEF 3) for 2028-2034 delivers stronger territorial and cross-border impact while reinforcing the role of local and regional authorities in its design and implementation. The opinion advocates for:
A stronger territorial dimension, recognising border, peripheral and outermost regions as key beneficiaries of CEF investments;
Enhanced multi-level governance, including clearer mechanisms for regional and cross-border coordination (e.g. EGTC involvement and corridor fora);
Simplified and accessible procedures for smaller regional and municipal promoters under direct management;
Balanced co-financing rules and effective complementarity between CEF and National & Regional Partnership Plans under the new MFF;
Improved synergies across sectors—transport, energy, and defence—to maximise European added value and ensure that infrastructure investments contribute to both competitiveness and cohesion.
A stronger territorial dimension, recognising border, peripheral and outermost regions as key beneficiaries of CEF investments;
Enhanced multi-level governance, including clearer mechanisms for regional and cross-border coordination (e.g. EGTC involvement and corridor fora);
Simplified and accessible procedures for smaller regional and municipal promoters under direct management;
Balanced co-financing rules and effective complementarity between CEF and National & Regional Partnership Plans under the new MFF;
Improved synergies across sectors—transport, energy, and defence—to maximise European added value and ensure that infrastructure investments contribute to both competitiveness and cohesion.
Essential points
THE EUROPEAN COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS (CoR)
- points out that the CEF is of central importance to LRAs, given that the majority of TEN-T and TEN-E projects occur at territorial level; highlights that the role and potential of LRAs to contribute to better outcomes have so far not been fully utilised; therefore calls for their formal recognition and structured involvement in CEF design, implementation, governance, monitoring and evaluation; further calls for the CoR to be granted observer status in relevant committees, in order to ensure that multilevel governance and territorial cohesion are fully reflected;
- calls for award criteria to recognise the European added value of national missing links, especially in large, sparsely populated or geographically constrained EU regions;
- urges the Commission to explicitly recognise EGTCs and cross-border regional groupings as eligible coordinators and partners in CEF-funded actions;
- notes that certain regions face structural disadvantages due to their geographical characteristics, and therefore calls for reinforced inclusion of territorial criteria in CEF award decisions, taking into account remoteness, demographic sparsity, topographical constraints, accessibility constraints and cross-border impacts;
- highlights the need to integrate urban-node relevance into project selection and award criteria, reflecting the concentration of bottlenecks and congestion around metropolitan areas in the TEN-T network, while also taking into account their contribution to regional development and territorial cohesion; this should include, among others, logistics and multimodal platforms, last mile solutions, multimodal access infrastructure and urban freight distribution systems;
- welcomes the substantial increase in funding for military mobility and making it a dedicated CEF priority; welcomes, in the same vein, the Military Mobility Package addressing regulatory, infrastructure and capability barriers to seamless military mobility;
- stresses that dual-use investments in military mobility must deliver civilian co-benefits, particularly for regional connectivity and resilience;
- stresses the need to strengthen the connectivity of strategic international airports and their rail and road connections with the wider TEN-T network, in particular those that function as gateways to the EU and intercontinental connecting hubs, as well as regional airports that are vital for territorial cohesion, accessibility and competitiveness.