EU financial support to sustainable urban mobility and to the use of alternative fuels in EU urban areas

The key role of the urban dimension in the future development of the Europe 2020 strategy, combined with the world economic and financial crisis that has deeply affected the European economy, calls for the optimisation of the use of scarce financial resources. To this end, the present study has undertaken an ex-post evaluation of EU financial support for projects concerning sustainable urban mobility and the use of alternative fuels in EU urban areas carried out in the last two financial perspectives: 2000-2006 and 2007-2013. Seven EU financial tools in these fields have been analysed, each with its specific nature and objectives: 1) the R&D FP - Framework Programmes (FP5, FP6, FP7), 2) the IEE - Intelligent Energy for Europe Programme, 3) the European Regional Development Fund - ERDF, including the Interregional Cooperation Programme, e.g. INTERREG; 4) the Cohesion Fund (CF), 5) the LIFE Programme, 6) the Trans-European-Networks in Transport - TEN-T and 7) the loans funded by EIB.