The Commission has agreed to consider specific exceptions regarding the network of European transport corridors up to 2023, which is being financed by EU funding.

At the November 2013 part-session Parliament approved the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF), which has a budget of EUR 29.3 billion earmarked to complete key European transport, energy, and telecommunications links in the six-year period from 2014 to 2020, and funding will be allocated primarily with a view to building cross-border transport links, filling gaps, and dealing with bottlenecks along the trans-European corridors. Most of the funding, EUR 23.2 billion in all, is earmarked for the transport sector, and a further EUR 10 billion will be available for transport links under the Cohesion Fund.

Given that we Europeans share common values, a fact that we readily and frequently point out, we should, to my mind, also have the same standard of, say, infrastructure; the aim of cohesion policy, at any rate, is to enable Union citizens to enjoy a uniform standard of living.

Can the Commission explain in detail when and how it intends to finance the building of motorways along the Adriatic-Ionian corridor from Ploč in Croatia to Montenegro, Albania, and Greece in order that the strategy for the Adriatic and Ionian macro-region may be translated into practice?