Loans totalling EUR 340 million have just been signed under the Facility for Euro-Mediterranean Investment and Partnership (FEMIP) for transport in the Mediterranean region.

Speaking at the signing ceremonies today in Paris, Mr de Fontaine Vive, EIB Vice-President in charge of FEMIP, set the scene. A few months after a new phase of enlargement that has redrawn Europe's frontiers, and almost two months after the FEMIP Experts Committee came together for the second time, meeting in Amsterdam in October 2004 to discuss the issues of water and transport in the Mediterranean region, including extension of the Trans-European Networks (TENs) to the Mediterranean partner countries, FEMIP is providing financing for priority transport projects in Egypt and Tunisia. Today more than ever, the countries of the Mediterranean are the Union's new neighbours. The financing of an expanded transport network, capable of strengthening the economic, social and cultural ties between the opposite shores of the Mediterranean, represents, I believe, an outstanding opportunity for cooperation among all the financial institutions operating in this region. FEMIP is financing the key infrastructure required to create a vast Euro-Mediterranean area as envisaged by the Barcelona Process.

The three loans granted are for the following projects:

• EUR 280 million for EgyptAir Holding Company to finance seven Airbus A330-200 aircraft as part of its fleet renewal. The new aircraft will be used on European routes and other long or medium-haul routes operated by EgyptAir. They will enable EgyptAir to tailor capacity to its customers' needs and to continue updating and rationalising its medium-haul fleet around the Airbus A330 family. This operation confirms FEMIP's support for the Egyptian airline's fleet modernisation plan, given that FEMIP was involved earlier, back in 1997, in financing the first part of the programme to renew the airline's long and medium-haul fleet.
• EUR 40 million for upgrading the urban road network of Greater Tunis and the governorates of Monastir and Médenine in Tunisia. The project will be carried out by the civil engineering department (DGPC) of the Ministry for Infrastructure, Housing and Town and Country Planning. It forms part of the priority programme for enhancing the existing network to assist the country's economic and social development, while at the same time improving the quality of life in the conurbations concerned. It complements the road schemes already financed by the Bank since 1994 (to the tune of EUR 246 million), which focused on improvement and extension programmes on priority roads in Greater Tunis, in the main towns of the country's road network.
• EUR 20 million for Société Nationale des Chemins de Fer Tunisiens (SNCFT) to finance capital investment centring on creating a rail link for gypsum waste disposal and on continuation of the programme for upgrading the country's rail network. Scheduled for completion by 2010, this investment will have a beneficial environmental impact (helping to end pollution of the Gulf of Gabès, in coordination with the Gulf of Gabès decontamination project developed by the Groupe Chimique Tunisien, also financed by the EIB), and will help to modernise the country's basic transport infrastructure and make it safer as well as develop communications with Algeria, via Ghardimaou. The African Development Bank is co-financing this project. Since 1995, FEMIP has contributed EUR 2.4 billion (21% of the EUR 11.5 billion loan total) towards the financing of large-scale transport schemes in the Mediterranean region, encompassing modernisation of the major rail lines and upgrading of the ports and urban roads, air transport and the road network.

Loans in the Mediterranean partner countries (MPCs) are extended under the Facility for Euro-Mediterranean Investment and Partnership (FEMIP), which focuses primarily on developing the private sector and financing social and economic infrastructure supporting this development.

FEMIP is the culmination of a partnership between the European Union and its Mediterranean neighbours that goes back more than thirty years and was intensified in the 1990s to underpin the Barcelona Process launched at the Barcelona Conference in November 1995. FEMIP aims to help the MPCs in meeting the challenges of economic and social modernisation and enhanced regional integration, in line with the Wider Europe Neighbourhood Policy and in preparation for the establishment of a Euro-Mediterranean free trade area. It enables Europe to step up its cooperation with the partner countries. Thanks to this Facility, with its increased financial resources, the EIB has been able progressively to expand its lending in the region from EUR 1.5 billion to EUR 2 billion annually. FEMIP accords priority to financing private sector ventures, with the dual aim of liberalising the economies of the MPCs and developing their potential in the run-up to the planned creation of an EU/MPC customs union in 2010. It focuses on foreign direct investment and local private sector initiatives as well as social sector projects, particularly in the fields of health, education and environmental protection, with the aim of fostering social stability and productive investment.