The European Commission and the European Investment Bank (EIB) have created a €1 billion loan guarantee fund to lever €25 billion of additional funds into the EU’s long running trans-European networks (TENs) programme.

The scheme is designed to create smooth running transport corridors spanning the EU, widening road bottlenecks, improving border crossings, investing in inter-modal transfer facilities and making other improvements.

Its success has proved mixed, because TENs has relied on comparatively small seed grants from the EU, designed to elicit parallel investment from national and regional authorities.

In this way, Brussels will spend €5.1 billion on TENs transport projects 2007-13, focusing mainly on inland waterways and railways.

The new loan guarantee fund would favour private public partnerships of all kinds, said the EIB and the Commission: “This new instrument will facilitate greater participation of the private sector in the financing of transport infrastructure of European significance, especially…where there is…revenue risk.”