The European neighbourhood policy presents potentially significant economic advantages and therefore, a higher legislative and regulatory convergence with the EU, especially in fields such as market access improvement, should lead to accelerated investments.
The European neighbourhood and partnership instrument is the financial instrument for European neighbourhood policy. It is addressed to European Neighbourhood Policy partner countries including Russia and offers co-funding for promoting good governance and equitable social and economic development process. The instrument also supports cross-border and trans-regional cooperation as well as the gradual economic integration of recipient countries with the European Union (EU) beneficiary countries. The budget for the instrument amounts to EUR 11.181 Million for the period 2007-2013, of which 95 % is for national and multi-country programmes and 5 % for cross-border cooperation programmes.
The European Neighbourhood and Partnership Instrument supports the following in particular sectoral cooperation, in sectors of common interest in particular: environment, sustainable development, energy, transport, telecommunications, research and innovation and regional and local development, and regional integration (Euro-Mediterranean regions and regions of Eastern Europe).
The European Commission published, in July 2011, a new Neighbourhood Transport Action Plan to strengthen transport links with neighbouring regions to the East and South of the EU. The plan proposes more than 20 concrete measures, in the short and longer term, to make transport connections smoother, safer and more reliable. At the same time, it will deepen market integration to the advantage of both the EU and its neighbouring regions. The plan was presented by Vice President Siim Kallas responsible for Transport and and Commissioner Stefan Füle, Commissioner for Enlargement and European Neighbourhood policy.
“Freedom of movement is something we all tend to take for granted in Europe, but it shouldn’t stop at the border. Today if we are serious about a relationship with our neighbours we need to provide the infrastructure which is essential for flows of goods and people across borders and cut away the bureaucracy and bottlenecks”, declared Siim Kallas.
“This action plan proposes the concrete transport measures that we aim to put in place for the benefit of citizens and companies both in the neighbourhood and in Europe”, said Commissioner Füle.Key measures for connecting the transport systems of the EU and its neighbours include joining up the Trans-European Transport Network with infrastructure of the EU’s neighbours through priority transport projects, making better use of rail freight potential by opening markets and by alleviating technical barriers such as differences in rail gauge sizes, as well as streamlining the implementation of regional transport cooperation, by establishing an Eastern Partnership Transport Panel to oversee cooperation with neighbours to the east.
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