Brussels, 06/03/2015 (Agence Europe) - At their meeting on Tuesday 10 March, European finance ministers are expected to reach agreement in principle on a European Fund for Strategic Investment (EFSI) as part of the Juncker Investment Plan.
A source from the Latvian Presidency of the Council of the EU said on Friday 6 March that they were pleased to announce that broad agreement will be reached on the EFSI next week, thus achieving Riga's promise to ensure agreement in March on the regulation to establish the EFSI, after two months of talks. This agreement among the member states will allow the Latvian Presidency to enter negotiations with the European Parliament once the EP has decided on its own negotiating stance at the economic and monetary affairs committee and the budgets committee (see EUROPE 11265 and 11264).
The EFSI is the financial arm of the Juncker Plan and will provide guarantees for any initial losses from selected projects. It will attract an estimated €315 billion in private investment over three years. The member states have not adjusted the financing (€16 billion from the EU budget and €5 billion from the European Investment Bank) or the section of the EU budget that the EU funding will come from, with a diplomat explaining that they weren't exactly delighted with the Commission's proposals but hadn't found a better alternative.
The Council will stress the importance of EFSI backing projects that would otherwise not come on stream (the 'additionality' principle), a matter that the MEPs are bound to insist upon. The chair of the EP's economic and monetary affairs committee, Roberto Gualtieri, said the EP would ensure that the EFSI provides additional investment that would not be forthcoming without the EFSI guarantee.
On the subject of governance, the EFSI steering committee will set the fund's investment policy. The member states say the steering committee should be comprised solely of representatives of the European Commission and the EIB and not the member states, even if the latter contribute directly to the fund, unlike as stated in the Commission's initial proposal. The idea is to prevent the EFSI being subject to political pressure and to avoid there being some member states on the steering committee while others are not, explained the diplomat, adding that they also wanted to ensure that there were not any non-European private investors on the steering committee. The Council will also suggest increasing the size of the investment committee (that selects project) from six to eight members.
The member states will also introduce a clause to examine the EFSI's action in 2018 to decide whether the EFSI should continue its work after the initial three years laid down in the Juncker Plan. (Mathieu Bion)