Slovenia succeeded in negotiations to secure the option of co-funding of cross-border street sections as part of the Connecting Europe Facility, an instrument for strengthening transport, energy and telecommunications links in Europe, said Infrastructure Ministry State Secretary Igor Šalamun.

Šalamun expects EU funds could cover ten percent of the cost of upgrading the Karavanke tunnel. He said the cost of the project had not been determined yet, but reports from Austria suggest that boring a second tube of the tunnel would cost about EUR 250m.

There are ten corridors in the EU's new priority network and Slovenia is on two, the Mediterranean from Spain to Ukraine, and the Baltic-Adriatic, which connects northern Adriatic ports with ports in the Baltic.

Šalamun said Slovenia's efforts would be directed at securing funding for Karavanke and two projects that have been on the EU's priority lists for some time, the rail link between Italy's Trieste and the rail hub Divača, and the second rail track between Divača and the Port of Koper.

Transport projects covered by Connecting Europe are eligible for EUR 32bn in the 2014-2020 budgetary period, but Šalamun said it was too early to say how much Slovenia might get. All member states will compete for the funds and big projects will have priority, he said.

Under the previous transport network system, dubbed TEN-T, Slovenia was part of the 6th priority project on the rail link from Lyon in France through Ljubljana and to the Ukrainian border.

The new scheme involves a core network to be completed until 2030, with the entire planned network scheduled for completion by 2050.

The core network now also involves rail links from Pragersko in the east to the Austrian border, from the Zidani most hub in central Slovenia to the Croatian border, and from Ljubljana to the nearby Jože Pučnik Airport.

The rail hubs Ljubljana, Koper, Obrežje and Dobova have also been included under EU links with third countries, while Ljubljana Airport and the Port of Koper have the status of core airport and port.