The Investment Plan for Europe Moves Forward in All 28 Member States

The European Commission announced yesterday that, through the Agreement signed in Cyprus, the EFSI – European Fund for Strategic Investments is already helping to encourage Investment, support Employment and stimulate Growth in all 28 Member States.

Just 18 months after the launch of the EFSI guarantee, lending by the EIB – European Investment Bank group, backed by the EFSI, is well on track to mobilise its initial target of €315 billion in additional investment in the real economy by 2018.

More than half of the path initially set for this target has already been covered. In December 2016, the operations approved under the Investment Plan for Europe already represented total financing of €30.6 billion.

These operations are now present in all 28 Member States and are expected to mobilise total investment of more than €164 billion.

The EIB has approved 176 Infrastructure projects for financing under the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI). These projects represent total financing of €22.4 billion.

The EIF – European Investment Fund has approved 244 SME financing agreements, with total financing of €8.1 billion under the EFSI. More than 388,000 SMEs and mid-cap companies are expected to benefit from this financing.

Given the success achieved to date, President Jean-Claude Juncker announced, in his State of the Union Address of 14 September, a proposal to extend the duration and capacity of the EFSI in order to strengthen investment (“EFSI 2.0”).

The proposal aims to extend to 2020 the initial three-year period (2015-2018), which had a target investment volume of €315 billion, so that at least €500 billion of investment is achieved. It also seeks to place greater emphasis on additionality, on cross-border projects, on support for SMEs and on strengthening the EFSI's geographical coverage.

The performance of the EFSI guarantee was assessed by the Commission, by the EIB and, independently, by the consultancy EY. The Commission concluded that each of these assessments confirms the need to support extending the EFSI.

The results of the three assessments are evaluated in the Commission's proposal and will be taken into account in the forthcoming legislative debate on EFSI 2.0.

The proposal to extend the EFSI has made considerable progress, with EU Finance Ministers backing the Commission's proposal at the ECOFIN Council meeting in early December 2016.

At its December meeting, the European Council welcomed this Agreement and called for the extension of the EFSI to be adopted by the co-legislators in the first half of 2017.

Source: Portugal 2020 website