The EU’s European Investment Bank (EIB) has announced loans of €7.9bn to fund an Italian rail project, transitions to renewable energy and social housing.
The rail scheme, the largest ever offered by the EIB to a rail project, will invest €2bn in a line between Rome, Naples and Bari on Italy’s east coast.
The link will reduce travel times between Naples and Bari by an hour and forty minutes. It is due to be completed in 2027, and will form part of the Scandinavia-Mediterranean Trans-European Network.
In addition, €2.9bn will be spent on upgrading Italy’s rolling stock, upgrading public transport in Sarajevo and Krakow, and improving a motorway in Bosnia Herzegovina.
Of the €3bn to be spent on green energy, €1.6bn will be used to finance small-scale climate action projects and the remainder will go towards windfarms in Dutch and Bosnian waters, improving energy efficiency in Austria and Ukraine, hydropower projects in Georgia, modernising electricity networks in Portugal and Hungary, and off-grid solar schemes in Africa and Latin America.
An unspecified amount of funding will go to large-scale social housing projects in France and Germany, and an urban development project in Stockholm.
Healthcare projects will be built in Belgium, including a regional hospital in the city of Tournai, and for mental health facilities across Belgium.
Image: Naples (Machnata/Dreamstime)
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