Brussels, 26/03/2015 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday 26 March, the MEPs discussed the proposed regulation instituting the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI), which is designed to draw down €315 billion in private investments over three years.
Notwithstanding the 1,396 amendments tabled to the draft joint report of the economic affairs and budget committees (see EUROPE 11273), I note that opinions are moving together towards ensuring that the financial arm of the Juncker investment plan is “efficient”, “democratic” and funds projects which would not otherwise find investors (principle of additional provision), said the chair of the economic affairs committee, Roberto Gualtieri (S&D, Italy). Once again, the MEPs stressed the importance of not politicising the selection procedure for the projects to be supported by the EFSI.
At the EP, the most controversial issue by some distance concerns the mobilisation of the EU budget to provide the future fund with its guarantee, which the Commission has set at €16 billion, through the immediate mobilisation of €8 billion from the Horizon 2020 research programme and the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF), which is designed to finance major infrastructure. The problem is not the use of the EU budget as a public guarantee, but more the budgetary lines chosen, which already serve to support investment.
“Our aim is to ensure that Horizon 2020 and the CEF are not trimmed”, said José Manuel Fernandes (EPP, Portugal), co-rapporteur. Eider Gardiazábal (S&D, Spain) has no objections to the creation of the guarantee fund, but argued that it could be useful to “have a look, after every financial year, at where money can be taken from the Community budget to make up this guarantee”. “The choice of budgetary line is a problem”, her French counterpart, Isabelle Thomas, insisted, adding that as long as the EFSI is supported by the EU budget, “there is total security ”.
Gérard Deprez (ALDE, Belgium) said that a guarantee of €8 billion from the EU budget was “a good amount”. “Every year, we will make sure that what needs to be done gets done. Before we touch the programmes, we will exhaust all other options”, he recommended. He called for a debate on the use of delegated acts.
The Ecofin Council, which has reached a political agreement in principle on the proposed regulation, made no changes to the lines or amounts which will be mobilised from the EU budget (see EUROPE 11271).
Co-rapporteur Udo Bullmann (S&D, Germany), referred to an “important” proposal of the EPP group, which has the support of many MEPs, to create a “related forum” for investment, bringing together the banks and bodies involved in the Juncker plan.
Stressing the need for the selected projects to be “quality” ones, Ernest Maragall (Greens/EFA, Spain) spoke of a 'scoreboard' system, which would grade the projects on the basis of the thematic priorities (environment, climate, education, etc) of the Juncker plan. (Mathieu Bion)