The European Investment Bank (EIB) is pressing ahead with its commitment to the high-speed rail sector in France.
Mr Hubert du Mesnil, Chairman of Réseau Ferré de France (RFF), and Mr Philippe de Fontaine Vive, EIB Vice-President, have signed a finance contract enabling RFF to borrow up to EUR 475 million from the EIB over the next two years for the first section of a new high-speed line (LGV) that will serve the Burgundy region from Dijon in the direction of Alsace, Germany and Switzerland.
Running from west to east, the high-speed line supported by this operation will begin in the Côte-d'Or Department in Burgundy, cross Franche-Comté and end near Alsace. Specifically, the first phase of the work to be carried out by RFF and partly financed by the EIB loan consists of the construction of 139 km of high-speed rail line stretching from Villiers-les-Pots (east of Dijon) to Petit-Croix (near Belfort).
As part of the trans-European transport networks (TENs), classified as an EU priority, the LGV Rhine-Rhône project has received special attention from the EIB.
During the signing ceremony, Philippe de Fontaine Vive welcomed this cooperation between the EIB and the major stakeholders in railway development in France in a long-term partnership that is set to continue. “Indeed”, he said, “railways are now more than ever a priority in France, as was confirmed by the Grenelle Environment Forum, and numerous projects still have to be implemented to complete and extend the French network over the next few years and decades".
As part of its support for large-scale infrastructure schemes, the EIB has participated in the financing of the majority of high-speed lines in France with loans totalling EUR 3.6 billion, including EUR 755 million for the TGV Est project, which opened in June of this year, EUR 340 million for TGV Atlantique, EUR 884 million for TGV Nord and EUR 618 million for TGV Méditerranée. It has also assisted the creation of high-speed networks in Belgium, the United Kingdom, Spain and Italy, lending a total of some EUR 17 billion in support of high-speed trains throughout the European Union.
Having signed loans worth EUR 84 billion for trans-European transport networks (TENs) in the EU and their extension to the regions bordering on the Union (since they were identified as projects of major interest by the Essen European Council in 1994), the EIB has become the leading source of bank finance for major networks with the ability to provide substantial sums on terms tailored to the scale of the projects concerned.