Negotiations are well underway at the Council of the EU on the legislative proposal aiming to double the capacity and duration of the 'Juncker' investment plan, with the European Council having set itself the target of reaching a political agreement in principle at the Ecofin Council of Tuesday 6 December.
On Monday 21 November, the Slovak Presidency of the Council tabled a second proposed compromise, which will be used as a basis for the discussions of, firstly, the national experts to meet at the Economic and Financial Committee on Monday 28 and Tuesday 29 November and, secondly, the national ambassadors to the EU, on Wednesday 30 November. Within the Council, an expert commented, there is a belief that the tool works and can be improved. A political agreement next week can therefore not be ruled out.
The Slovak proposed compromise, which EUROPE has seen, includes the main elements of the initial legislative proposal of the Commission (see EUROPE 11624 and 11631). In particular, it makes no changes to the proposed increase from €21 billion to €33.5 billion (€26 billion from the EU budget and €7.5 billion from the EIB) of the public guarantee under the EU Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI), the financial arm of the 'Juncker' investment plan.
Increasing the firepower of the EFSI will help to raise up to €500 billion in new investments up to 2020, the year in which the multi-annual financial framework expires.
The 'Juncker' plan was created to support investments that would not otherwise see the light of day, due to a lack of investor interest. One of the examples put forward is the support provided to the French project EcoTitanium for the recycling of aeronautical-grade titanium. However, the additional nature of the projects to benefit from the public guarantee is very difficult to prove, several external studies have stressed (see EUROPE 11667). One of the means of action consists of making the decision-making process more transparent: the investment committee, which is responsible for selecting the projects, should be public and give reasons for its decisions once these have been approved by the Governing Council of the EIB.
In order to provide certain member states, members of the European Parliament and stakeholders with additional assurances, the Slovak Presidency has included two assessment reports in its proposed compromise. The first of these, which is expected for the end of June 2018, in other words before the launch of the second phase of the 'Juncker' plan, will analyse the functioning of the EFSI and state whether the instrument represents good use of the EU budget. The second, to be returned at the end of 2019, will specify whether the EFSI has achieved its objectives, with particular regard to the additional nature of the projects.
In order to avoid any politicisation of the decisions, the 'Juncker' plan gives no preference to any particular geographical area or sector of activities. However, the Slovak text includes climate action as a possible area of intervention, for the purposes of implementing the Paris Agreement of 2015. It is worth noting that Italy has proposed that the EFSI also support cultural and heritage-related projects. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)