Brussels, 22/07/2015 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday 22 July, the European Commission announced that it had adopted the most recent raft of measures for launching the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI). On the same day, it also signed an agreement for €2 billion with the European Investment Bank (EIB) for the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF).
This funding will be allocated as part of the “Debt Instrument”, a financial instrument included in Article 14 of Regulation 1316/2013 of the CEF, which stipulates that “the overall contribution from the Union budget to financial instruments should not exceed 10% of the global CEF envelope”.
According to Commission forecasts, this “delegation agreement” should help to provide leverage for more than €30 billion from the private sector, which could be directly invested into interconnection infrastructure that will impact on the transport sector (such as the recent extension of the port of Calais, which received funding of up to €500 million), telecommunications and energy.
According to Commission calculations, every euro invested in the CEF Debt Instrument will generate up to €15 in private investment into infrastructure, based on the investment plan model developed by the Juncker Commission.
This financial instrument has been tried out within the TEN-T framework and is expected to operate until 2020. (Pascal Hansens)