2017 CEF Transport Blending Call for Proposals: 40m euro co-funding available for your SESAR projects
On 27 February INEA organized an Info Day providing all details on the 2017 CEF Transport Blending Call for Proposals launched on 8 February. The 2017 CEF Transport Blending Calls for Proposals is an innovative approach to grant funding, seeking to increase the participation of private sector investments in trans-European transport infrastructure financing as an alternative or complement to the traditional grant funding from the European Commission.
In this context the blending is the use of CEF grants in projects utilising private finance, or with finance from EFSI (European Fund for Strategic Investments), the European Investment Bank, national promotional banks, or private sector investors, in order to maximise the leverage of private sector involvement and capital in the delivery of the Actions, while respecting the principle of non-cumulative award.
The 1 billion euro CEF Transport Blending Call focuses on projects of common interest in the transport sector while maximising the leverage of private involvement and capital in the delivery of CEF transport projects. 40 Million euro out of 1 billion euro is the budget made available for the funding objective 3 Single European Sky – SESAR.
To optimize the impact of EU funding, the projects submitted under the category ‘Common Projects’ should be focused on certain key priorities:
Implementation projects that support the implementation of specific families identified in the Deployment Programme
Implementation projects aiming to implement Data Link capability in support to AF6 – Initial Trajectory Information Sharing
As SESAR Deployment Manager is the project coordinator for all project proposals falling under category 1 Common Projects within Funding objective Single European Sky – SESAR within this particular Call, we inform you as a potential project partner on how to participate to this Call while benefitting from our coordination.
Highlights of the 2017 CEF Transport Blending Call
The most important constraint to this call is the size of the Action
Projects seeking complementary EIB/EFSI support should typically have a project total cost in excess of 25 million euro for an individual loan. Please note that for most SESAR projects the 25 million euro threshold applies. The total eligible costs of the Action shall always be in excess of 10 million euro.
The submission of your project proposal must include a new Application form part E (in addition to those already well known e.g. Application Form part A, B, C and D) to address the financing need in addition to the usual co-funding request. The indicative funding ratio for the projects submitted under Category 1 “Common Projects” and Category 2 “Other Projects” is 80% – 20%.
Letter of support from the Financial Institution has to be provided at the time of the proposal submission and Maturity of the Action measured, among others, by evidence that full financial close with a private sector investor/EIB/National Promotional Bank, can be reached within 12 months from the signature of the grant agreement.
Costs are eligible from submission date until 31 December 2023
SESAR Deployment Manager Coordination of the 2017 CEF Transport Blending Call (first cut- off date)
Coordination and submission of your project by SESAR Deployment Manager has been tailored on the basis of the specific characteristics of the current call to bring you benefits such as: close coordination and support of all requested formalities, customizing your project description to best fit the objectives of the Call, a high expertise in managing CEF Transport Calls 2014,2015 and 2016, making sure your project serves the needs to achieve the Single European Sky Goals and thus a higher chance of getting awarded.
In order to support your project proposal in the best possible way, SESAR Deployment Manager has defined the following guidelines & timeline:
No clusterization will be performed: One candidate implementation project will be prepared by the Implementing Partners with support of SDM through the 5 Application Forms parts A, B, C, D, E and Supporting Letter. SDM will contribute providing the general description of the Global Project. Every candidate implementation project will have to integrate SDM coordination and will result into an individual proposal. In the end, every awarded implementation project will become and Action on its own.
There will be a maximum of two iterations between SESAR Deployment Manager and the implementing partner;
Strong enforcement of roadmap deadlines is required to be able to submit in time (as reported by Cristobal Millan De La Lastra during the INEA Info Day hold on 27th of February),
All stakeholders wanting to propose a project must join, once their project(s) are selected by INEA for co-funding, the specific Framework Partnership Agreement with SESAR Deployment Manager to be able to participate
First iteration cut-off date 12 April 2017 – Provision of the first draft of the Implementation project description
Member States’ endorsement from 19 June to 7 July
Submission by SESAR Deployment Manager of all project proposals received: 14 July 2017
A detailed roadmap including all steps which need to performed on both SDM and Operational Stakeholders side can be found here:
We would like highlight that in order to well prepare the project proposals and meet the INEA deadline, 12 of April is the cut – off date for presenting the IP description. The projects presented after this deadline will not be taken into consideration.
Overall INEA Roadmap of the 2017 CEF Transport Blending Call first cut – off date 14th of July 2017 can be viewed here:(not including SDM deadlines, for the specific internal deadlines please refer the roadmap available on the link above)
All information on this Call:
Check out the SESAR session at World ATM Congress on this topic:
All info on SESAR at the World ATM Congress
If you have any questions regarding the 2017 CEF Transport Blending Call, please contact us at 2017blendingcall@sesardeploymentmanager.eu