On 20 March, the EC welcomed a preliminary agreement on its proposal for a Regulation establishing the InvestEU Programme, to boost private and public investment in Europe in the next long-term EU budget 2021-2027.
InvestEU aims at making financing easier by bringing together the European Fund for Strategic Investments and 13 other EU financial instruments, currently supporting investment in the EU. The InvestEU programme will enable the use of public funding to support strategically important projects across the EU. The domain for development and deployment of digital technologies will focus on making access to further investments easier and more transparent for beneficiaries. These investment operations will include future key areas such as artificial intelligence.
Next steps
The InvestEU programme is still subject to the formal approval of the European Parliament and Council. Also, the budgetary aspects of InvestEU still have to be agreed within the next MFF budget.
Analysis
Latest figures of the European Investment Bank, the Commission’s strategic partner on the Juncker Plan showed that the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI) had mobilised almost €390 billion of investments. Especially, small and medium companies will benefit from these agreements.
Background
InvestEU is the Union’s flagship programme for a sustainable, resilient and competitive European economy and a partnership with the European Investment Bank Group (EIB). It builds on the success of the Juncker Plan (Investment for Europe) and at least € 650 billion will be mobilised for public and private investment.
