The European Commission and the European Investment Bank (EIB) have created a 1 billion euros loan guarantee fund to lever 25 billion euros 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 to be 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 euros on TENs transport projects by 2013, focusing mainly on inland waterways and railways.