Brussels, 09/03/2015 (Agence Europe) - The two co-rapporteurs of the European Parliament, Udo Bullmann (S&D, Germany) and José Manuel Fernandes (EPP, Portugal), will present their draft report on the regulation instituting the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI) on Thursday 12 March.
This draft report by the two parliamentary committees competent on the substance (economic and monetary affairs, budgets) is expected to be adopted at committee level on 20 April, so that inter-institutional negotiations with the Council can begin, with a view to a definitive political agreement before the summer.
The president of the economic and monetary affairs committee, Roberto Gualtieri, said that the EP will strive to ensure that the Juncker plan triggers investments “that would not have taken place without the EU guarantee”. “I am sure that the EP won't ask for geographical quotas” for the selection of projects, he told EUROPE on Wednesday 4 March, but stressed the importance of maintaining coherence with the socio-economic objectives of the EU when choosing the projects. The Italian Social Democrat is in favour of the creation of national investment platforms with the expertise necessary to support “useful and viable” projects, in order to encourage the member states to get on board the Juncker investment plan.
This Tuesday 10 March, the Ecofin Council will reach a political agreement in principle on the draft regulation bringing in the EFSI, which is designed to draw down €315 billion in private investment over three years (see EUROPE 11269). The financial component of the Juncker plan, the fund will stand guarantor for the first losses incurred by the projects selected. The member states have changed neither the envelope (€16 billion from the EU budget and €5 billion from the EIB) nor the provenance of the money from the European budget. They stress the importance for the fund to support projects which would not get off the ground without the support of the EFSI (principle of additionality).
As regards governance, the members states hope to limit the composition of the EFSI steering committee to the European Commission and the EIB, notably in order to avoid any politicisation of the fund. This limit greatly reduces the likelihood that the EU states will make a direct contribution to the EFSI, even if the Commission does call for any such contributions with regard to the Stability and Growth Pact. In order to have a say in the governance of the EFSI, individual states would have to put between €10 and €15 billion into it, an amount none of them is able to come up with, a diplomat noted on Monday 9 March.
France to contribute via its national promotional banks. On Friday, France announced that it would put €8 billion into the Juncker plan via its two national promotional banks, Caisse des dépôts and Bpifrance. The level of this indirect contribution is the same as the one announced in February by Germany via KfW and higher than the allocation of €1.5 billion recently announced by Spain via ICO (see EUROPE 11264). (Mathieu Bion and Élodie Lamer)