Slovenian Ministry of Infrastructure has announced that will make a new attempt to get funding for the Koper-Divača rail upgrade from the EU’s Connecting Europe Facility (CEF). In a submission made at the beginning of February, Slovenia will try to get EUR 33.4 million from its own envelope and EUR 35 million from the funds left from other cohesion countries.
Infrastructure Minister Peter Gašperšič said that Slovenia would vie for the funds in the call for the preparatory works for the second rail track between the port of Koper and the inland hub of Divača and for project documentation for the track itself.
Apart from the funding available in its own national envelope, Slovenia also hopes to win funds from the envelope pooling together the funds not distributed in the national envelops of other countries.
In implementing the second track project, Slovenia is counting on obtaining some EUR 250 million in EU funds, so the Infrastructure Ministry is also preparing to apply for the upcoming mixed mechanism call, combining funds from the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI) and cohesion funds.
Gašperšič said that EU funding was vital for the financial sustainability of the project, noting that even in case of failure in any of the calls, certain manoeuvring ground was still possible, including through changes in share capital, also through increased borrowing.
“We are definitely optimistic that with the work started on these two expected calls we will get the desired amount of funding,” he said.
The government last year incorporated a special purpose vehicle called 2TDK to prepare everything for the construction of the second rail track to the port of Koper.
The Infrastructure Ministry has published a call for project documentation for preparatory works, which is open until June. After that it will also publish a call for the implementation of these works, so that work could begin in the autumn.
The track-doubling project involves the construction of 27.1 km of lines being estimated at more than EUR 1 billion. In all the track’s construction is to take six years.
Share on:
