European Funds in the Renfe Group

European funds

European funds are used to invest in job creation and a sustainable and healthy European economy and environment.

Both the  Structural Funds and the  Cohesion Fund serve the purpose of promoting a greater degree of economic and social cohesion in the Community area, through the co-financing of the public expenditure policies developed by the Member States and aimed at achieving this objective.

The  Next Generation Funds are created to alleviate the serious economic and social crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and transform European economies by making them greener, more digital and more resilient.

The European Funds are financial resources that the European Union allocates to the Member States to co-finance projects and policies aimed at boosting the economic, social and territorial growth of the EU.

More than half of EU funds are channelled through the five European Structural and Investment Funds (ESIF), jointly managed by the European Commission and EU countries.

In addition, in 2020 the Recovery and Resilience Mechanism was created to alleviate the serious economic and social crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and transform European economies by making them greener, more digital and more resilient.

CEF (Connecting Europe Facility)

The Connecting Europe Facility is a key EU financing instrument to promote growth, jobs and competitiveness through targeted infrastructure investments at European level. It supports the development of high-performance, sustainable and efficiently interconnected trans-European networks in the fields of transport, energy and digital services. CEF investments cover missing links in Europe's energy, transport and digital backbone.

CEF funds benefit people in all Member States by making travel easier and more sustainable, improving Europe's energy security while enabling wider use of renewable energy and facilitating cross-border interaction between public administrations, businesses and citizens.

CEF funds are divided into three sectors:

Transport
Energy
Digital

One of CEF's key priorities is to enable and strengthen synergies between the three sectors. Actions in all sectors can optimise costs or results by pooling financial, technical or human resources, thereby improving the effectiveness of EU funding."

Connecting Europe Facility - European Commission (europa.eu)

Within this framework, Renfe Viajeros SME S.A. obtained CEF funds for the implementation of ERTMS on some of its trains

"The European Rail Traffic Management System (ERTMS) is a unique European signalling and speed control system that ensures the interoperability of national rail systems, reducing the costs of acquiring and maintaining signalling systems, as well as increasing train speeds, infrastructure capacity and the level of safety in rail transport." European Rail Traffic Management System (ERTMS).

European Union Agency for Railways (europa.eu)

RENFE's CEF projects:

CEF. 2015-ES-TM-0011-W
Retrofitting and modernisation of ERTMS on board Renfe vehicles
- Investment: 55.984.000€
- EU contribution: 27.992.000€
- Number of trains: 292
CEF. 2016-ES-TM-0027-W
Retrofitting and modernisation of ERTMS on board Renfe vehicles
- Investment: 22.500.000€
- EU contribution: 11.250.000€
- Number of trains: 162

European Regional Development Fund (ERDF)

The European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) is one of the main financial instruments of European cohesion policy. Its aim is to help reduce the disparities between the levels of development of European regions and to improve the standard of living in the less favoured regions. Particular attention is given to regions suffering from severe and permanent natural or demographic handicaps, such as northernmost regions, which are sparsely populated and island, mountainous, and cross-border regions.

The ERDF has two main objectives:

Investment in growth and employment, which is aimed at strengthening the labour market and regional economies;
European territorial cooperation, aimed at strengthening cross-border, transnational and interregional cooperation within the Union.

Renfe-Operadora has been designated as the Intermediate Body for the management of the funds framed in the Multi-regional Operational Programme of Spain (POPE) ERDF 2021-2027.

This programme, which consists of promoting urban and sustainable mobility, means lower energy consumption and less dependence on oil, which leads to a reduction in polluting emissions. With this in mind, Renfe Operadora's management of ERDF funds will focus on Specific Objective 2.8 which aims to promote sustainable multimodal urban mobility, as part of the transition towards an economy with net zero carbon emissions.

In accordance with the Multi-regional Operational Programme of Spain (POPE) ERDF 2021-2027, Renfe-Operadora, as an Intermediate Body, will act especially on three types of action:

Actions to improve accessibility in the stations of the Cercanías network: Adaptations and works in order to improve accessibility to the stations for people with reduced mobility or any other type of disability. With a view to performing these actions, the electrical systems at stations may be adapted, with the corresponding costs covered by the Fund, in such a way as to facilitate the installation of the different accessibility elements (lifts, ramps and escalators, etc.). In the process of transforming the facilities, adaptations may also be made to them to improve energy efficiency in order to facilitate the installation of accessibility elements.
Circulation safety actions: Actions for the supply, installation and commissioning of digital communication and railway communication systems (GSM-R), in suburban trains, to replace existing analogue systems. These communication systems will provide the necessary support (redundant systems policy to guarantee safety) to the ERTMS signalling system once rolled out on Cercanías (Commuter) trains.
Digitisation actions: Projects for the installation of a communications platform for the operation of the Cercanías (Commuter) service, the migration of WIFI communication systems between the rolling stock and the control centre and the installation of global passenger information and control systems in vehicles.