How to Close the AFIF Funding Gap in 2026/2027

Last Updated on: 27th May 2025, 02:02 am

The EU’s funding instrument to support the rollout of public charging lacks €1.25 billion in a critical moment. An initiative to fill this gap should be a priority for Commissioner Tzitzikostas’ Sustainable Transport Investment Plan (STIP).

The Alternative Fuels Infrastructure Facility (AFIF) is a key EU funding instrument supporting the rollout of public charging and alternative fuel infrastructure across Europe, particularly for road transport. Managed centrally by CINEA under the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF), it has proven efficient, predictable, and aligned with AFIR targets.

With €2.3 billion allocated between 2021–2025 (€578 million remaining after February 2025), most funding has so far supported public EV charging (62%, both LDV and HDV) and hydrogen refueling (23%), though the latter offers limited impact per euro spent given its very limited role in the road sector.

The AFIF funds will be likely exhausted after the cut-off in June 2025 (small amounts may remain for the final cut-off in March 2026). This creates a looming funding gap for 2026–2027 which risks stalling infrastructure deployment during a critical phase of uptake of electric light and heavy duty vehicles. The EU must urgently secure €1.25 billion to bridge this gap, ideally through remaining funds in existing instruments like the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF), European Regional Development Funds (ERDF) or the Cohesion Fund (CF), to maintain progress toward the 2025 and 2030 AFIR goals. An initiative to fill the AFIF-gap should be a priority for Commissioner Tzitzikostas’ Sustainable Transport Investment Plan (STIP).

Funds should be focused on deploying HDV charging along the TEN-T, closing the remaining TEN-T gaps in the LDV charging network (mainly in Southern, Central and Eastern countries), strengthening the LDV network where needed (urban nodes, large stations along the TEN-T) and all associated grid connections and battery energy storage systems. Furthermore, the Commission should provide flexibility for project deadlines to allow CPOs to fully implement projects and absorb the allocated funds.

Closing the funding gap:

Created in 2021 as a subprogram of the EU’s Connecting Europe Facility (CEF), the AFIF’s aim is to fund alternative fuels infrastructure for road, shipping, rail and aviation. Like all CEF funding, AFIF is centrally managed by the European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency (CINEA). The facility has proven to be an effective financing model for public charging.

AFIF’s first phase (“AFIF 1”) from 2021-2023 had a total budget of €1.575 billion of which €375 million were earmarked for the EU’s cohesion countries. By the end of 2023, €1.3 billion had been spent in five funding rounds. The remaining budget was increased to €1 billion for the second phase 2024-25 (“AFIF 2”).

In February 2025, the Commission announced that a total investment of €422 million was spent in the first funding round (or “cut-off”) of the second phase. The second cut-off for the second phase will be in June 2025, where the remaining budget of approximately €578 million in funding will be available. After that date, any remaining AFIF funding will be available for a third cut-off in March 2026. In total, €2.3 billion are being made available over 5 years.

T&E has analysed the past funding rounds to understand what projects benefited from AFIF’s support. In total, 167 projects (128 in the first phase and 39 in the second phase) have benefited from AFIF support during the period 2021-2024 during the two funding phases.

Over the period 2021-2024 (i.e. excludes the final rounds with a cut off in June 2025 and March 2026), public charging for light- and heavy duty vehicles received more than 60% of the total funding (€1.1 billion out of €1.7 billion), followed by hydrogen refueling stations (HRS) with 23% (€400 million).

Coverage gaps:

• AFIF has proven to be an effective tool in meeting critical infrastructure needs along the EU’s Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T) supporting deployment of public charging points towards meeting the targets set out in the Alternative Fuels Infrastructure Regulation (AFIR).
• Thanks in part to AFIF support, the TEN-T network is fully covered with LDV ultra fast public chargers in most Western and Northern EU countries. Ambitious charging frameworks in countries like France and Germany, ensured the TEN-T network has been covered in just a couple of years. Based on charging network analysis from the end of 2024, around 70% of the TEN-T Core network was covered with appropriate ultra-fast chargers and 11 EU countries already met the AFIR coverage targets for the TEN-T Core by the end of 2025.
• Gaps remain in Southern and Eastern countries, but the past experience from Western countries shows that with the right policies and funding, these gaps can be rapidly closed. Once the second funding phase is completed and the projects implemented, it is expected that the map below will look different as more projects will be completed.

Closing the 2025–2027 gap in AFIF:

1. Given the financial needs in terms of grid upgrades and deployment of the heavy duty charging network, T&E estimates that €500 million per year would be required to fill the gap, or €1.25 billion euros for public charging infrastructure projects only (total from mid-2025 to end 2027).
2. We cannot simply wait for the future EU multi-annual budget which starts in 2028. Without an alternative funding source, the development of public charging infrastructure through EU-funding risks drying up completely, potentially undermining some Member States’ capability to achieve the AFIR targets. The AFIF programme was very successful so far, by having a central pool of EU funding for charging infrastructure that can be deployed in large cross-borders projects in one application.
3. Given that the main gaps in LDV charging coverage along the TEN-T network are in Cohesion countries—and that their share of EU AFIF funding declined in 2024 compared to 2023—it is essential to ensure a fairer allocation of funds to these regions to secure balanced road charging coverage across the Union.
4. Future funding rounds should be focused on deploying HDV charging along the TEN-T, closing the remaining TEN-T gaps in the LDV charging network (mainly in Southern, Central and Eastern countries), strengthening the LDV network where needed (urban nodes, large stations along the TEN-T) and all associated grid connections and battery energy storage systems.
5. Delays in the realisation of projects under AFIF 1 (e.g. due to lengthy grid connection processes and permitting process) places some projects at risk of an obligation to reimburse the funds to the European Commission. Extending the current AFIF 1 project deadlines (as it is in AFIF 2) would allow CPOs to fully implement the projects and absorb already allocated funds.

Funding sources to close the gap:

1. Remaining CEF: Since AFIF is part of the CEF, this would be the first logic source, but it appears that CEF transport funds as a whole are almost fully used, with less than €4.6 billion out of the total €25.8 billion funds for 2021-27 left. Hence, it is unlikely that sufficient CEF Transport money is available to replenish AFIF given its broader focus on building new or upgrading existing transport infrastructure across Europe as well as military mobility.
2. Remaining RRF: Another option is to leverage the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF), which still has significant unspent funds (€343 billion, including €159 billion in grants according to the RRF Scoreboard as of April 2025). By amending their National Recovery and Resilience Plans (NRRPs), Member States could redirect funds toward public charging infrastructure along the TEN-T network. The Commission should issue guidance to Member States on how to revise their NRRPs to best achieve Union goals. This guidance should strongly advise investing in charging infrastructure to ensure AFIR compliance.
3. Unspent ERDF and CF: Another possibility is to use unspent resources under the European Regional Development Funds (ERDF) and the Cohesion Fund (CF). With a majority of the ERDF and CF budget still to be spent until the end of 2027, Member States could allocate a larger share to charging infrastructure, while preserving their capacity to invest in other priority areas in support of cohesion, environmental and social objectives.

Press briefing from T&E.