Summary sheet
The project will finance the operational resilience and safety and security investments under the Verona airport 2015-2030 masterplan. In detail, it concerns: i) the reorganisation and rehabilitation of the aircraft parking apron; ii) the upgrade of the airside area in order to comply with the latest safety and security regulations; iii) the construction of new rescue and firefighting facilities; iv) the reconstruction and upgrade of the baggage handling system to the latest standards.
The aim is to improve the operational resilience and the maintenance of the highest safety and security standards at an airport infrastructure belonging to the Trans European Network Transport (TEN-T) network of airports.
The Project aims at ensuring the operational resilience and maintaining the highest safety and security levels at Verona airport the largest city of the Veneto region. The airport is part of the Comprehensive TEN-T airport network and is located in the immediate vicinity of the Mediterranean and Scandinavian - Mediterranean corridors. Since alternative airports are either small or are a couple of hours away (either by road and/ or rail), allowing the airport to degrade would imply growing congestion, service disruption and forced diversion to alternative travel means, which a competitive market would not address, constituting a market failure. Alternative means of transport involve a substantial penalty to travellers in terms of both travel time and operating costs, implying that the socio-economic cost associated to the market failure addressed by the project would be very high.
EIB's financing provides the client competitive pricing, longer tenor than commercial lenders and flexible loan conditions, such as long grace and disbursement periods, which are therefore better adapted to the implementation of the Project. EIB's financing also is expected to have a strong crowding-in effect as it is expected to be assisted by additional resources coming from the Borrower's shareholders and by further commercial financing. The operation will also send a positive signal to the market regarding EIB's strong willingness to support regional airport operators to fully recover from the Covid pandemic.
The scope of the project is a part of the airport's development masterplan that was subject to an environmental impact assessment in line with the requirements of the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Directive 2014/52/EU (amending the EIA Directive 2011/92/EC) on the assessment of the effects of certain public and private projects on the environment (EIA Directive). An EIA decision was issued by the Competent Authority.
The promoter has been assessed by the EIB as being a public concessionaire not operating in the utilities sector and therefore being subject to comply with the EU Public Procurement Directives. The EIB will require the promoter to ensure that contracts for implementation of the project have been and will be tendered in accordance with the applicable EU procurement legislation, 2014/25/EU as well as Directive 92/13/EEC as interpreted by the Court of Justice of the EU, with publication of tender notices in the Official Journal of the EU, as and where required.