Wednesday, 27 JANUARY 2010 - CATEGORY : MARKET NEWS
The European Commission has given its green light for the public funding by France and Spain of the Fres Mos project, which will link the French port of Nantes Saint-Nazaire with the Spanish port of Gijon.
This Motorways of the Sea project will also receive an EU grant within the framework of the 2009 Marco Polo II call for proposals, in which the Commission selected twenty-two projects with overall funding of 66.3 million. With these projects, the Commission expects to shift a total of 16.8 billion tonne/kilometres of freight away from the roads.
The Fres Mos Motorways of the Sea project intends to capture between three and five per cent of the road traffic passing through the western part of the Pyrenees. It is expected to reduce road traffic by around 40 000 trucks a year, a figure that is likely to double in five years.
The Fres Mos project will receive EU funding of approximately 4 million from the Marco Polo II programme. Furthermore, the Commission has also approved complementary state aid for the project amounting to 30 million, of which France and Spain will each grant 15 million. The overall financing of the project will be limited to 35% of the eligible costs within the first four years of its operation, in line with the applicable EU rules on state aid.
