<p>In October 2011 the European Commission published a set of draft regulations for TEN-T and an accompanying Financial Instrument known as the ‘Connecting Europe Facility’ (CEF). Prior to this, and throughout the subsequent negotiations, my Department worked closely with the devolved Administrations (DAs) to ensure that the UK had a co-ordinated position and to ensure that the outcome aligned as far as possible with the UK's negotiating objectives.</p><p>In developing a planning methodology for the Comprehensive and Core networks the European Commission set thresholds for the inclusion of airports and ports as a percentage of the total EU passenger or freight traffic throughput over a three year average (2006, 2007 and 2008) as follows:</p><p><table><thead><tr><td valign="top">Percentage<br /></td></tr><tr><td valign="top" /><td valign="top">Comprehensivenetwork<br /></td><td valign="top">Corenetwork<br /></td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td valign="top">Airports<br /></td><td valign="top" /><td valign="top" /></tr><tr><td valign="top">Passenger<br /></td><td valign="top">0.1<br /></td><td valign="top">1<br /></td></tr><tr><td valign="top">Freight<br /></td><td valign="top">0.2<br /></td><td valign="top">2<br /></td></tr><tr><td valign="top">Ports<br /></td><td valign="top" /><td valign="top" /></tr><tr><td valign="top">Passenger<br /></td><td valign="top">0.1<br /></td><td valign="top">1<br /></td></tr><tr><td valign="top">Freight<br /></td><td valign="top">0.1<br /></td><td valign="top">1<br /></td></tr></tbody></table></p><p>The Department has therefore made no assessment on what has not been included on the TEN-T network.</p><p>The new TEN-T regulation has a degree of flexibility built into it, and will allow airports and ports which are not currently included in the Comprehensive network to be added at a later date if they meet the threshold criteria.</p>