The European Commission published a new Neighbourhood Transport Action Plan to strengthen transport links with neighbouring regions to the East and South of of the EU, which proposes more than 20 concrete measures, such as extending the EU's internal aviation market and Single European Sky to neighbouring regions and joining up the Trans-European Transport Network with infrastructure of the EU's neighbours through priority transport projects.

The Commissioner responsible for enlargement and European neighbourhood policy, Štefan Füle, highlighted that the measures proposed, which is part of the European Neighbourhood Policy launched on 25 May of this year, offer a deeper economic integration to our neighbours in the East and South. Vice President Siim Kallas responsible for Transport added that this action plan proposes the concrete transport measures that will benefit citizens and companies both in the neighbourhood and in Europe.

Among the measures proposed in the plan, it includes extending the EU's internal aviation market and Single European Sky to neighbouring regions; joining up the Trans-European Transport Network with infrastructure of the EU's neighbours through priority transport projects; making better use of rail freight potential by opening markets and by alleviating technical barriers such as differences in rail gauge sizes; streamlining the implementation of regional transport cooperation, by establishing an Eastern Partnership Transport Panel to oversee cooperation with neighbours to the east; making sea transport with the neighbouring countries more efficient, including in the longer term, through their inclusion in the “Blue Belt” of free maritime movement in and around Europe; and helping neighbouring countries to improve road safety. In addition, the Commission has recently opened a call for proposals for grants in the field of the Trans-European Transport Network.

In October 2011, the new Eastern Partnership Transport Panel which will oversee the implementation of the measures to the East, will be launched at a ministerial conference organised under the Polish EU Presidency. The Commission's plan will now be presented to the Council and the European Parliament.