On Friday 2 September during a high-level information session on the European Structural and Investment Funds (ESI) and the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI), which took place in Poland, the European commissioner for regional policy, Corina Cretu, highlighted the potential of investment platforms.
The ESI and EFSI regulations indeed help contribute to investment platforms. These platforms help leverage funding for several projects in a given geographical area and not for an individual project. The commissioner highlighted the case of the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region (France), which is benefiting from this new mechanism to finance projects to improve energy efficiency and in the long term achieve neutrality on carbon emissions.
The Commission has high hopes for these investment platforms. Last April, Jyrki Katainen, the Commission vice president for economic and monetary affairs and the euro, called on the European regions to take full advantage of the opportunities provided by these investment platforms (see EUROPE 11539). The Committee of the Regions (CoR) reports that an increasing number of its members see these platforms as an instrument that should be promoted because they are flexible and include a large number of regional funds and actors.
At a more general level, the institution is seeking to facilitate the combination of these two types of funds with a view to creating synergy. The Commission presented a brochure at the beginning of the year, in an effort to help the local and regional authorities take full advantage of these two funds by combining them (see EUROPE 11496). Despite this, the regions are still facing complex regulation. The commissioner stated that her staff were examining the issue in order to facilitate combining these two funds, particularly as part of the review of the multiannual financial framework.
In July, during the 7th summit of the regions and cities, the CoR launched an action plan in which it called for clarification with regard to this combination (see EUROPE 11591). (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)