"Aviation stakeholders will respond successfully to this ambitious decarbonisation challenge"

"If the EU wants to be the first climate-neutral continent by 2050, this requires ambitious changes in transport including air transport"

The European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency (CINEA) was officially established in February 2021, successor to the Innovation and Networks Executive Agency (INEA). Its mission is to support stakeholders in delivering the European Green Deal through high-quality programme management that helps to implement projects contributing to decarbonisation and sustainable growth. Consequently, CINEA plays a key role in supporting the European Union (EU) Green Deal through the efficient and effective implementation of its delegated programmes: the Connecting European Facility; Horizon Europe; Innovative Fund; the LIFE programme; the EU Renewable Energy Financing Mechanism; the European Maritime and Fisheries and Aquaculture Fund, and the Public Sector Loan Facility under the Joint Transition Mechanism.

The European Green Deal is a package of policy initiatives, which aims to set the European Union on the path to a green transition, with the goal of reaching climate neutrality by 2050. It supports the transformation of the EU into a fair and prosperous society with a modern and competitive economy. All the programmes delegated to CINEA aim to address the EU Green Deal Objectives from different angles (research, deployment, studies, works) and for different sectors (all modes of transport as well as energy and environment, to name a few).

The European Green Deal has the potential to play a key role not only in ensuring in the short term the much-needed economic recovery after the COVID-19 pandemic crisis, but also in addressing long-term climate change threats. Project promoters in all modes of transport including air transport are therefore taking advantage of EU funding opportunities available under the various programmes managed by CINEA to address these challenges and make change happen. CINEA is pleased to regularly promote all the efforts and success stories of its beneficiaries in doing so.

With transport contributing around 5% to EU GDP and employing more than 10 million people in Europe, the transport system is critical to European businesses and global supply chains. At the same time, transport brings costs to our society in the form of greenhouse gas and pollutant emissions, noise, road accidents and congestion.

Today, transport emissions represent about 25% of the EU's total greenhouse gas emissions, and these emissions have increased over recent years. We also all know that a significant part of CO₂ emissions come from aviation. So, if the EU wants to be the first climate-neutral continent by 2050, this requires ambitious changes in transport including air transport. The involvement of all actors is necessary if we want to achieve a 90% reduction in transport-related greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

Because the European aviation sector has taken on the challenge of achieving carbon neutrality by 2050, by making every journey as environmentally friendly as possible and aiming to fly the optimal green flight, the only way forward is to deliver all the expected improvements. The aviation sector has clearly shown its resilience, its capacity to react and to innovate during the COVID-19 pandemic crisis. All aviation stakeholders have worked together to overcome the difficulties, so there is good reason to believe that aviation stakeholders will again respond successfully to this ambitious decarbonisation challenge. We can already see very promising and exciting projects focusing on sustainable fuels, redesigning aircraft and the airports of the future, improving existing technologies for take-off and descent, reducing CO₂ emissions and noise, developing drone services and integrating drones into European air traffic management.

The Digital Sky Demonstrators under the 2022 Call contribute to two research and innovation flagships, namely the gradual transition towards higher levels of automation, and virtual centres and ATM data service providers.

These above are new opportunities to fund projects for European aviation under the SESAR programme and I would like to encourage aviation stakeholders to continue seizing these funding opportunities and apply.

Next to the SESAR programme, CEF is also supporting aviation projects though other funding priorities.

We are for instance supporting the greening of airport operations through our Alternative Fuel Infrastructure Facility.

We are also supporting a growing number of aviation projects – this is perhaps less well known – through our military mobility envelope.

Military mobility actions are an important tool that can contribute to the modernisation of air transport for civil and military use. They provide an excellent opportunity to create and increase synergies between defence and civil air transport infrastructures and support the needs of both by complying with dual-use requirements.

It is worth stressing that opportunities for synergies can emerge at any stage of a Horizon Europe or CEF project lifetime. Active participation in thematic events attended by both the CEF and H2020/Horizon Europe communities is valuable for project promoters allowing them to find opportunities for synergies. Considering other funding and support instruments made available by the European Commission and other EU institutions is another key approach to tap into the potential of synergies.

Further information on all programmes managed by CINEA and all open calls for proposals are available on CINEA's website  and the EU Tender and Funding Opportunities Portal . Now is really the time to act to make change happen and make the European Green Deal a reality for us and our future generations.