Brussels, 26/07/2016 (Agence Europe) - A number of MEPs wrote to Budget Commissioner Kristalina Georgieva on Tuesday 26 July to voice their concerns at information received that Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) funding could again be used to support the extension of the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI), the financial arm of the Juncker investment plan.
Dominique Riquet (ALDE, France), Sylvie Goulard (ALDE, France), Guy Verhofstadt (ALDE, Belgium), Marian-Jean Marinescu (EPP, Romania) and Markus Pieper (EPP, Germany) call on Commissioner Georgieva to heed their remarks with a view to the policy debate to be held in the college of commissioners on Wednesday 27 July on the mid-term review of the 2014-2020 multiannual financial framework (MFF).
The EFSI aims to inject €315 billion of new investment into the real economy by 2018. MEPs, however, have often stressed that the EU funding of new initiatives should not be at the expense of the Horizon 2020 programme or the CEF. The envelope for these two major EU programmes has been reduced by €2.2 billion and €2.8 billion respectively in order to help build up the EFSI guarantee.
The signatories of the letter stress that companies' competitiveness and citizens' welfare are highly dependent on a single European transport area that works well. They state that the CEF has performed at a very high level and that “CEF intervention was decisive in most cases”. A total of 458 projects have been supported, mobilising investment of €37.6 billion. The CEF envelope is almost empty for the remaining 4 years of the MFF (€2.8 billion in grants and €1.3 billion in financial instruments).
“All these elements might bring us to support a stronger CEF and increase its envelope within the MFF review. And not the contrary”, the MEPs state in their letter.
They acknowledge that, in terms of transport, the EFSI pipeline is performing well (12 projects, totalling €8.5 billion and generating around 60,000 jobs). “However, on the one hand, it is likely that most of these projects would have taken place without EFSI integration. On the other hand, most projects supported are not in line with EU political priorities as defined in CEF and TEN-T (Trans-European Transport Network) guidelines as road projects are over-represented”, they point out.
The signatories support the extension of the EFSI but without using part of CEF financial instruments budget (EUROPE 11583). They suggest using part of this budget in the form of grants for blending with EFSI to increase the leverage effect of the projects supported. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)