Eligible applicants
1. Actions shall be submitted by a consortium of two or more undertakings, established in at least two different Member States or in at least one Member State and one close third country, or may in the case of a transport link with a close third country, in exceptional cases, be submitted by a single undertaking established in a Member State.
2. Undertakings established outside the participating countries referred to in Article 3(3) and (4) may be associated with a project, but may under no circumstances receive Community funding under the Programme.
Eligible actions and funding conditions
1. The following actions shall be eligible for funding under the Programme:
(a)
catalyst actions; those aimed at improving synergies in the rail, inland waterways and short sea shipping, including Motorways of the Sea, sectors by better use of existing infrastructures in particular deserve specific attention;
(b)
Motorways of the Sea actions; within the European Union such actions shall use the trans-European networks defined in Decision No 1692/96/EC of the European Parliament and Council of 23 July 1996 on Community guidelines for the development of the trans-European transport network ( 6 ) ;
(c)
modal shift actions;
(d)
traffic avoidance actions;
(e)
common learning actions.
2. The specific funding conditions and other requirements for the various actions are set out in Annex I. The funding conditions for ancillary infrastructures within the meaning of Article 2(h) are set out in Annex II.
3. Community financial assistance shall be based on contracts to be negotiated by the Commission and the beneficiary. The terms and conditions of those contracts shall, as far as possible, keep financial and administrative burdens to a minimum, for example by facilitating business-friendly bank guarantees, as contemplated by applicable rules and regulations, especially Council Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 1605/2002 of 25 June 2002 on the Financial Regulation applicable to the general budget of the European Communities ( 7 ) , so as to achieve maximum administrative efficiency and flexibility.
4. Without prejudice to the overall policy objectives referred to in Article 1, annual priorities in the call for applications relating to catalyst actions and common learning actions shall be established and, if necessary, reviewed, by the Commission, assisted by the Committee referred to in Article 10 and in accordance with the procedure referred to in Article 10(2).
Detailed rules
Detailed rules concerning the procedure for submission and selection of actions under the Programme shall be adopted in accordance with the procedure referred to in Article 10(2).
State aid
Community financial assistance for the actions covered by the Programme shall not prevent those actions from being granted State aid at national, regional or local level, insofar as such aid is compatible with the State-aid arrangements laid down in the Treaty and within the cumulative limits established for each type of action set out in Annex I. The total aid granted in the form of State aid and Community financial assistance in respect of ancillary infrastructure shall not exceed 50 % of eligible costs.
