The Connecting Europe facility aims to promote investment for transport, energy and telecommunications from 2014 to 2020, by using funds from the EU budget to help promote selected projects of European interest. However the initial €50 billion budget proposed was reduced to €29 billion at the February 2013 European Council.
A first reading agreement between the Parliament and the Council includes transport financing focused on the core transport network, particularly on cross-border missing links, removing bottlenecks, ensuring interoperability and making the network smarter. In terms of energy, priorities will include ending energy isolation and ensuring that most of the energy budget goes to electricity infrastructure projects. The priorities for telecoms are to be decided in the specific telecoms regulation, given that the massive budget cut from €9 to €1 billion requires a new proposal from the Commission.