Off the wire
• Yi, Zhou lift China over Montenegro in Olympic basketball warmup  • Chinese army begins large-scale drill  • Urgent: Republican Donald Trump picks Mike Pence as running mate  • China's independent environmental inspectors get to work  • UN chief slams deadly terrorist attack in France  • 42,000 welshers barred from corporate roles in China  • Belgian PM says national day celebrations to go as planned  • Diplomacy, not courthouse, key to resolving South China Sea dispute: European Parliament member  • Germany tightens border controls after Nice attack  • U.S. pledges to support stability, prosperity in Lebanon  
You are here: 　 Home

EU to invest 263 mln euros in energy infrastructure

Xinhua, July 15, 2016 Adjust font size:

The 28 member states of the European Union(EU) Friday has approved the proposal drafted by the bloc's executive body to invest 263 million euros (293.1 million U.S. dollars) in key trans-European energy infrastructure projects.

The lion's share of the investment will support the building of gas infrastructure in the Baltic Sea region as well as supporting the electricity sector across Europe.

The European Commission said there were nine projects selected under the EU funding support program the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF).

"The selected priority projects aim to increase energy security, connect the isolated EU Member States to the wider European grid and contribute to the EU objectives of affordable, secure and sustainable energy,"it said in a statement.

According to the statement, five of the nine selected projects are in the gas sector and four are in the electricity sector.

In the gas sector, the European grants will cover the construction of the Balticconnector, the first gas pipeline linking Estonia to Finland.

Once completed, the interconnector will end the dependence of Finland from a single gas supplier.

In the electricity sector, the list will include the construction of a new 100 kilometer electricity line between Dobrudja and Burgas in Bulgaria.

"This EU support will help fill existing gaps in energy infrastructure, putting us on the path to a truly connected European energy market, " The European Commissioner for Climate Action and Energy Miguel Arias Canete said.

The European Commission said a total of 5.35 billion euros was allocated to trans-European energy infrastructure for the period of 2014-2020 under the Connecting Europe Facility. Enditem