Presenting he budget for transport, energy and digital infrastructure as part of the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) in Brussels on Wednesday, the Slovenian commissioner said that EUR 42.3bn expressed in the current prices was to be available in the 2021-2027 period, including EUR 30.6bn for transport and EUR 8.7bn for energy.

This is a 47% increase compared to 2014-2020, she said, noting that EUR 11.3bn out of the EUR 30.6bn earmarked for transport were cohesion funds. A part of the budget (EUR 6.5bn) has been earmarked for military mobility projects for the first time.

Bulc said that her home country, despite the demanding period in which a new government needs to be formed after the election, should also focus on the EU budget and prepare adequate projects on time so that the drawing of EU funds is successful.

According to her, Slovenia has been given a very favourable cohesion envelope for the next budget period, and is among the countries which will see the smallest cuts. But Bulc nevertheless called on Slovenia not to limit itself only to grants.

The new financial mechanisms as part of the future multi-year budget enable more investments at the local level, which is why it makes sense to explore them, Bulc said.

The commissioner recommended that Slovenia focus on projects related to decarbonisation of transport and projects with a cross-border dimension, adding she was happy that Slovenia had applied for CEF funds for the railway links Villach-Ljubljana and Rijeka-Pivka.

According to Bulc, also interesting will be projects related to autonomous cars. She noted that Slovenia has recently signed cooperation agreements in this field with Austria and Hungary.