Brussels, 18/03/2015 (Agence Europe) - On Friday 20 March, the European leaders will call upon the European legislator to ensure that the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI), which is designed to attract €315 billion in private funding over three years, is up and running “from mid-2015”.
The political agreement in principle recently sealed by the Ecofin Council on the draft regulation setting in place the EFSI under the aegis of the EIB is “an important step towards an agreement by the co-legislators on the legislative act by June, so that the EFSI can be fully deployed from mid-2015”, state the draft conclusions of the European Council, dated 16 March.
The economic affairs and budget committees of the European Parliament have presented a draft joint report on the EFSI, which they are expected to adopt by late April. This text provides for a budgetary arrangement making it possible to take a minimum from the envelopes available to the research programme Horizon 2020 and the financing of infrastructure (Connecting Europe Facility) (see EUROPE 11273). The summit concluded that the projects supported under the Juncker plan should “be additional to ongoing EU programmes and traditional EIB Group activities”.
“On Friday, we will hold a debate on the economic situation and on the implementation of key structural reforms undertaken by member states”, the President of the European Council, Donald Tusk, wrote to his counterparts on Wednesday 18 March. The backdrop to this debate is the controversial decision of the Ecofin Council to give France an extra two years (from 2015 to 2017) to bring its public deficit under the 3% of GDP mark, in return for more vigourous reform activities (see EUROPE 11271). At the summit, the leaders will enshrine the three major pillars - investments, structural reforms and budgetary responsibility - of the annual Growth Review, a document which marks the start of the European Semester budgetary process. The member states will be called upon to build these priorities into their forthcoming national reform programmes and stability or convergence programmes which they will notify to the European Commission by the end of April. (Mathieu Bion)