The “Connecting Europe” Facility (CEF)

The “Connecting Europe” Facility (CEF) is a new financial instrument that replaces the existing TEN-T Fund. The CEF’s goal is to support infrastructure projects in the areas of transport, energy and information technology.

The Centre for EU Transport Projects plays the role of Implementing Institution for the CEF Instrument.

In the transport sector, the CEF covers projects that aim at:

• increasing the number of links with places at risk of exclusion, creating joint investments between countries
• ensuring sustainable and efficient transport over the long term, creating modern high speed rail networks
• construction of convenient connections between airports and cities via rail networks
• completion of the TEN-T base network up to 2030 by creating a new and substantial modernization and reconstruction of existing infrastructure.

More information on the program and the evaluation of the projects by the Ministry of Development Funds and Regional Policy can be found on the CINEA website.

Contest Rules

CEF competitions are organized directly by the European Commission on the basis of:

• The Multi-Annual Work Program (MAP)
• The Annual Work Program (AP)

The differences between the programmes involve the scope of support, the duration of the projects and the amount of funds available. Before being submitted to the European Commission, all proposals for projects from Poland must be approved by the Ministry of Development Funds and Regional Policy. Entities from all EU Member States can participate in the competition procedure. Exceptions are funds relocated from the Cohesion Fund to the CEF, which can only be claimed by cohesion countries.

Contest Rules

The CEF fund application procedure begins when the European Commission launches Calls for proposals, which set out the rules for application and detail the priorities for support. In the period after the publication of the Call and prior to the deadline for submitting applications to the European Commission, an Info Day is organized in Brussels, which presents all the most important information related to the competitions.

The detailed rules for the evaluation and selection of projects are published by the European Commission in Work programmes and Calls for proposals. All applications submitted before being sent to the EC must be approved by the Member State, i.e. the Ministry of Development Funds and Regional Policy. Applications without such approval will not be evaluated by the EC