On the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing the Connecting Europe Facility for the period 2028-2034…, amending Regulation (EU) 2024/1679 and repealing Regulation (EU) 2021/1153

for the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy and the Committee on Transport and Tourism on the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing the Connecting Europe Facility for the period 2028-2034, amending Regulation (EU) 2024/1679 and repealing Regulation (EU) 2021/1153

(COM(2025)0547 – C100167/2025 – 2025/0221(COD))

The Committee on Budgets has carried out a budgetary assessment of the proposal under Rule 58 of the Rules of Procedure and has reached the following conclusions:

The Committee on Budgets,

A.whereas the proposal maintains its focus on the transport and energy sector, in particular cross-border links, and introduces dedicated funds for dual-use transport infrastructure, albeit discontinuing the digital strand; whereas investment in the EU’s digital infrastructure will be financed by the European Competitiveness Fund (ECF);

B.whereas the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) programme has been faced with high oversubscription rates, showing the need for greater investment, in particular in the military mobility component of the current programme, for which the entire envelope was fully consumed, well ahead of the end of the programming period, demonstrating the scale of unmet investment needs in dual-use transport infrastructure; whereas, in the current geopolitical situation, military mobility is a key component of the EU’s security and defence, and EU support for dual-use transport infrastructure provides clear added value;

C.whereas the CEF programme has proved crucial for financing major cross-border infrastructure projects and missing links, which would have otherwise faced significant challenges in securing adequate funding, particularly where infrastructure gaps hamper full integration into the internal market; whereas enhancing the programme is crucial for improving market accessibility and supporting business competitiveness, including in border regions or insular areas; whereas Regulation (EU) 2024/1679 contributes to enhancing the predictability and stability of funding;

D.whereas in addressing market failures or suboptimal investment situations, the CEF programme creates a leverage effect, such as in the area of outdated grid infrastructure, which creates bottlenecks for the deployment of renewable energy; whereas several projects funded by the programme have experienced cost overruns and significant delays, as identified by the European Court of Auditors in its Special Report 02/2026 on EU transport infrastructure;

1.Considers that the programme envelope should be increased from EUR 81.4 billion (EUR 72.3 billion in 2025 prices) to EUR 91.3 billion (EUR 81 billion in 2025 prices), not least in order to close the investment gaps in the trans-European transport network, to promote the interconnectivity and interoperability of transport networks, enhance military mobility, and support electrification and cross-border energy infrastructure to achieve sustainable and inclusive growth and foster resilience, while increasing the EU’s strategic autonomy and military, as well as civilian, preparedness; considers, also, in the context of this funding increase, the need to encourage projects that have the potential to reduce structural disadvantages, enhance sustainability and territorial continuity, and improve integration between energy, logistics and industrial networks;

2.Considers that sufficient human, technical and IT resources must be available from the outset and throughout the entire programming period of the 2028-2034 multiannual financial framework (MFF) to ensure an effective implementation of the CEF programme, including for the executive agency that may directly manage it, without detriment to the programme’s financial envelope; stresses, also, the fact that effective implementation requires sufficient technical assistance and administrative capacity, at national, regional and local levels, to enable all regions to participate in calls and prevent planning gaps from developing into further investment gaps;

3.Insists that sufficiently detailed and sound legislation, with an appropriate level of governance, is a condition for proper budgetary decision-making and adequate parliamentary oversight during budget implementation; recommends introducing provisions to strengthen control over how the budget is mobilised and spent; considers that a ‘steering mechanism’ can in no way be a substitute for Parliament’s legislative and budgetary powers, and cannot be conceived without a sound governance architecture that ensures the exercise of such powers;

4.Deplores the fact that the proposed breakdown of the CEF budget would give the Commission greater latitude to shift and decide on spending priorities during implementation, particularly compared to the situation for the same actions in the present MFF; stresses that simplification and flexibility must not come at the expense of transparency and oversight by the budgetary authority; recommends, therefore, that the overall envelope be broken down to reflect the CEF programme’s specific objectives;

5.Deplores the lack of a sufficiently detailed budgetary nomenclature proposed in the Legislative Financial and Digital Statement (LFDS); considers that this will hamper the budgetary authority’s ability to accurately steer policy priorities in the annual budgetary procedure; expresses concern that the overly aggregated budgetary architecture would dramatically increase the Commission’s discretion in transferring and reallocating resources without a decision from the budgetary authority, and would severely limit parliamentary oversight; recommends, therefore, a more detailed nomenclature that properly reflects the programme’s objectives and structure, and enhances transparency, accountability and parliamentary control;

6.Recalls that the budgetary nomenclature must comply with Article 47(2) of the Financial Regulation, which provides that each title must correspond to a policy area and each chapter, as a rule, to a programme or an activity, in line with the principles of specification, sound financial management and transparency; considers, therefore, that the three strands of the CEF programme should be classified as chapters, and that further detail and granularity at the level of articles, items and sub-items is needed for specific energy and transport objectives; recommends that the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy and the Committee on Transport and Tourism amend the proposal to include an annex defining the nomenclature of the programme; insists that the budgetary nomenclature forms an integral part of Parliament’s negotiating position and must be discussed in interinstitutional negotiations; considers, in this regard, that the revised LFDS must form part of the final political agreement;

7.Believes that all substantive policy choices, such as programme objectives, spending priorities, financial allocations, funding rates, eligibility, selection and award criteria, conditions, definitions and calculation methods must be determined in the basic act, with full respect for Parliament’s prerogatives as a co-legislator and one arm of the EU’s budgetary authority, and that any non-essential elements entailing policy choices that are not included in the basic act must be adopted through delegated acts, including work programmes, where appropriate;

8.Highlights the need to ensure the predictability and stability of funding required by complex cross-border, long-term projects, and also to ensure continuity and coherence across MFF periods; stresses that, should a degree of flexibility to respond effectively to evolving geopolitical, economic and security challenges be envisaged, this must be accompanied by full respect for the prerogatives of the budgetary authority, and must ensure transparency and accountability in the reallocation of resources;

9.Notes that Regulation (EU) 2022/869 (the Trans-European Networks for Energy Regulation), which determines eligibility for projects financed under the energy strand, is currently under revision, and that this revision may update project categories or introduce new ones; considers that updated or new eligible actions introduced by the revised Trans-European Networks for Energy (TEN-E) regulation will have access to CEF financing only in the later years of the programming period; requests that the Commission ensure that sufficient funding be made available for the financing priorities to be identified by the revised TEN-E regulation;

10.Emphasises that affordable cross-border rail transport plays a vital role in strengthening European integration, promoting territorial cohesion and meeting sustainability objectives; underlines, in this regard, the importance of ensuring adequate, stable and predictable funding; stresses that the goal of overcoming the infrastructure gaps is in line with the principles of territorial cohesion, competitiveness and the EU’s strategic autonomy;

11.Recalls that the proposal includes the possibility of using a budgetary guarantee and financial instruments; stresses that the budgetary implications of borrowing and lending operations under CEF must be clearly identified, transparently presented and carefully monitored throughout the MFF period; underlines, in particular, that their potential impact on the MFF headroom or other guarantees must be fully assessed and duly taken into account; insists that all decisions related to such operations must fully respect the powers of the co-legislators and the prerogatives of the budgetary authority; underlines that such instruments should be used strategically to maximise the impact, efficiency and sustainability of EU funding, while ensuring full transparency, sound risk management and respect for the prerogatives of the budgetary authority; believes, nevertheless, that these instruments may also prove helpful, if properly calibrated, in mobilising additional capital for strategic infrastructure with a high European and territorial impact, in full respect of transparency, additionality and parliamentary scrutiny;

12.Welcomes the possibility of providing EU support in the form of financial instruments and budgetary guarantees through the Global Europe delivery mechanism or the ECF InvestEU Instrument, including through blending operations that combine EU grants with loans, as an effective means of leveraging additional public and private investment;

13.Stresses that blending grants with other forms of public or private financing has proved effective in catalysing additional investment, leveraging private resources and accelerating the delivery of strategic infrastructure projects;

14.Considers, also, that reflows from financial instruments should stay available within the CEF programme;

15.Calls for the avoidance of fragmentation in the implementation of EU funding instruments; takes note of the suggested complementarity between CEF and other programmes, such as national and regional partnership plans, Global Europe, Horizon Europe and the ECF; stresses that enhanced complementarity between instruments must not lead to double funding, nor come at the expense of traceability of expenditure or the prerogatives of the budgetary and discharge authority, especially given that the Commission proposes to generalise the use of financing not linked to costs in many of the proposed programmes; underlines that the contribution of CEF to operations financed jointly with other instruments must be explicitly identifiable at all stages of the budgetary cycle; stresses, in this regard, that any such contribution must be duly reflected in the programme performance statement for the CEF programme; insists that the budgetary authority should retain full control over how resources are combined across instruments and over the effective contribution of each programme to EU priorities, specifically through detailed budgetary nomenclature; stresses that enhanced complementarity between programmes must not lead to unnecessary complexity for beneficiaries; calls for EU funding to be clearer, more accessible and more coherent, in order to facilitate uptake and maximise the impact of investments; insists that the use of financing not linked to costs must be limited to smaller-scale projects, while for large-scale projects, as is generally the case for CEF, financing must always be linked to actual costs; calls, therefore, for greater coordination between CEF, the Cohesion Fund, the ECF, national and regional partnership plans, and other instruments targeting the EU’s insular regions;

16.Stresses that the use of external assigned revenue under CEF, either as financial or non-financial contributions to the programme, must be clearly circumscribed, fully transparent and subject to effective parliamentary scrutiny; takes note, in this regard, of the provisions relating to additional financial contributions to the programme by any participating non-EU country and other third parties; recalls the importance of ensuring the traceability of external assigned revenue; underlines that, should the lead committees consider amending provisions relating to external assigned revenue, this should be done in coordination with the Committee on Budgets and the other committees in order to ensure a consistent approach; stresses, in this regard, the need to safeguard the EU’s strategic interests and ensure the appropriate protection of EU-funded assets and ownership structures, in particular regarding critical cross-border infrastructure projects;

17.Underlines that the EU’s rural, insular, border, peripheral and outermost regions face disproportionate connectivity deficits, which limit citizens’ access to economic opportunities and public services; calls for CEF to ensure that grant eligibility criteria and award procedures do not structurally disadvantage projects in low-density or geographically isolated areas; calls on the Commission to report annually to the budgetary authority on the geographic distribution of CEF funding, disaggregated by type of region and type of funding;

18.Regrets the fact that there has been no dedicated impact assessment for the proposed regulation; expresses concern at the delay in the presentation of the CEF progress report for the existing MFF period, which could have provided insights for assessing the Commission’s proposal;

19.Recalls the proposal for a regulation on establishing a budget expenditure tracking and performance framework (the performance regulation), which establishes a single streamlined list for performance indicators and monitoring and evaluation provisions, some of which are relevant for CEF; deplores the lack of impact indicators, which may complicate subsequent evaluations and might hinder the ability to adopt measures to improve the implementation of the programme and, in this regard, calls for the necessary improvements; underlines that any change to the architecture, objectives and eligible actions under the programme will need to be appropriately reflected in the monitoring provisions under Annex I of the performance regulation, as part of the process of amending and negotiating that regulation; points out that while sectoral legislation can supplement the performance regulation, for instance as regards programme evaluations, it should remain consistent with the provisions of that regulation;

20.Recalls that under Article 6(2) of the Financial Regulation, the establishment and implementation of the budget must comply with a general regime of conditionality in cases of breaches of the rule of law; underlines, furthermore, that Article 6(3) of the Financial Regulation requires the Member States and the Commission, in the implementation of the budget, to ensure compliance with the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union and respect the values on which the EU is founded, as enshrined in Article 2 of the Treaty on European Union.

As part of its budgetary assessment, the Committee on Budgets also submits the following amendments to the draft proposal:

Amendment 1

Proposal for a regulation

Recital 16 a (new)

Amendment 2

Proposal for a regulation

Recital 23 a (new)

Amendment 3

Proposal for a regulation

Recital 23 b (new)

Amendment 4

Proposal for a regulation

Recital 34 a (new)

Amendment 5

Proposal for a regulation

Recital 34 b (new)

Amendment 6

Proposal for a regulation

Article 4 – Paragraph l

Amendment 7

Proposal for a regulation

Article 6 – Paragraph 1

Amendment 8

Proposal for a regulation

Article 8 – Paragraph 5 a (new)

Pursuant to Article 8 of Annex I to the Rules of Procedure, the rapporteur for budgetary assessment declares that he included in his budgetary assessment input on matters pertaining to the subject of the file that he received, in the preparation of the budgetary assessment, prior to the adoption thereof in committee, from the following interest representatives falling within the scope of the Interinstitutional Agreement on a mandatory transparency register, or from the following representatives of public authorities of third countries, including their diplomatic missions and embassies:

The list above is drawn up under the exclusive responsibility of the rapporteur.

Where natural persons are identified in the list by their name, by their function or by both, the rapporteur declares that he submitted to the natural persons concerned the European Parliament’s Data Protection Notice No 484 (https://www.europarl.europa.eu/data-protect/index.do), which sets out the conditions applicable to the processing of their personal data and the rights linked to that processing.