Brussels, 23/03/2015 (Agence Europe) - The European Construction Industry Federation (known by its French acronym, FIEC) and the insurance industry have made recommendations to the European legislator on the creation, under the aegis of the EIB, of the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI), the financial arm of the Juncker plan designed to draw down €315 billion in private investments over three years.
FEIC stresses the importance of limiting the number of thematic priorities (energy efficiency, education, urban development etc) in order to avoid watering down the objectives of the Juncker plan. However, the construction industry expresses its concern about the financial structure on which the EFSI will be based. Under the Commission's initial proposal, as adopted by the Council (see EUROPE 11271), the EFSI would be based on the guarantee of €8 billion from the European budget, €2.7 billion of which would come from the “transport” envelope, €500 million from the “energy” envelope and €100 million from the “information technology” envelope, or nearly 10% of the total budget of the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF). FIEC highlights the risk that “more mature projects from other sectors [may] finally get the lion's share” of an envelope initially earmarked for transport infrastructure.
The organisation Insurance Europe emphasises the importance of the principle of additionality, whereby the Juncker plan should fund only projects which would not find private investors willing to come on board without the EFSI. Warning against the risk that the selection of projects could become politicised, it calls for the six experts to make up the investment committee responsible for project selection to include at least three experts from the private sector. Lastly, the insurance sector stresses the need to ensure that the performance of the EFSI is assessed by an “independent third-party body”.
The two organisations highly approve of the creation of a project platform with knock-on effects in the regions to increase the transparency of the investment opportunities and to advise the project holders.
Pre-funding for SMEs. The EIB has undertaken to pre-finance projects to support SMEs in the framework of the Juncker plan before the EFSI is even up and running (see EUROPE 11255). It is worth noting that the Commissioner for Investment, Jyrki Katainen, told last week's plenary session of the European Economic and Social Committee that €75 million would be made available for this purpose at the end of April. (Mathieu Bion)