Malta’s application for Phase I of the upgrading of the TEN-T road network at the Marsa junction was among the projects selected by the European Commission to benefit from new European Funds under the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF), the government said. The project will be one of only 31 proposals to benefit from the maximum 85% EU co-financing made available to EU cohesion countries. Transport Malta had submitted the application for Phase I of the Project in February 2015. The amount of new additional EU funds for Malta will be around €39 million. The project submitted by Malta was considered to be of top quality and received high marks in all key areas during the evaluation process.
Transport Minister Joe Mizzi expressed his satisfaction regarding the outcome of the 2014 CEF call.
“Yesterday’s announcement by Transport Commissioner Bulc on the EU funding of Phase I of the Marsa TEN-T project is very positive and welcome news for Malta. Over the past year, we have worked tirelessly within the EU, at political and technical levels, to explain and justify the European added value of removing a road traffic bottleneck at southernmost tip of the TEN-T Scandinavian-Mediterranean Corridor. I would to thank everyone involved in the preparation of the application for their excellent work. A special thanks goes to Pat Cox European Coordinator for the Scandinavian-Mediterranean Corridor, whom I have met a number of times since his visit to Malta in March 2014, and whose vision for a balanced TEN-T development along the Scandinavian-Mediterranean corridor took into full consideration the specific transport needs of a small island state at the periphery of Europe. I would also like to express my gratitude to Commissioner Bulc who was always welcoming when I requested her assistance”.
The TEN-T Marsa project aims at removing a critical road traffic bottleneck on the Scandinavian-Mediterranean TEN-T core network corridor. Malta’s application had clearly demonstrated how the removal of this bottleneck would contribute to EU general policy objectives relating to the internal market, growth, and jobs. It also meets the specific TEN-T policy objectives of promoting efficient and sustainable use of the infrastructure, increasing capacity, and providing improved infrastructure in terms of safety, security, efficiency, climate change, and accessibility.
Transport Malta Chairman and CEO, James Piscopo also expressed his satisfaction at such an achievement, saying: “We had a very good team working on this project. We knew the competition for these limited EU funds under this call was going to be very fierce, so we wanted to make sure a top-notch project was put forward. The feedback we had was excellent and the result is significant. This is another major step forward in our infrastructural investment towards eliminating traffic bottlenecks. The Addolorata Junction will follow another major infrastructure investment Transport Malta is making, after the Kappara Junction project which will commence early next year”.
The outcome of the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) Transport Calls for Proposals was announced yesterday by EU Commissioner for Transport Violeta Bulc. Over 700 project applications were submitted by EU Member States, however, following a rigorous evaluation process over the last four months, only 276 transport projects were eventually approved for EU funding. This centralised EU funding under CEF is over and above the funding allocated for transport projects in the Operational Programmes (2014-2020) of EU countries.
Transport Malta will also be applying for CEF funding for €30m Phase II of the project in 2017 through an additional call for proposals that will be issued using the unutilised funds from CEF cohesion envelope.