The European Parliament's Committees on Economic and Monetary Affairs (ECON) and on Budgets (BUDG) are set to adopt, on Tuesday 27 and Wednesday 28 October, their position on the InvestEU programme for the period 2021-2027, which the European Commission had proposed to strengthen last May in light of the Covid-19 pandemic (see EUROPE 12496/8).
Successor to the ‘Juncker’ post-2020 investment plan, the InvestEU programme aims to attract additional private investment through a public financial guarantee based on the EU budget and to streamline fourteen existing EU programmes.
MEPs are expected to support the European Commission's proposal to create a fifth investment window within InvestEU aimed at supporting investment in strategic sectors. They will reportedly even advocate the creation of a sixth window on support for corporate solvency, to compensate for the outright abolition of this budgetary instrument by the European Council at the end of July as part of the agreement on the EU's post-2020 budget.
On the amount of the European public guarantee, the parliamentary committees are said to have a majority to stick to the envelope put forward at the end of May by the Commission, i.e. an increase from €38 to €75 billion (current prices). A further €19.85 billion would be used to finance the ‘support for business solvency’ window, giving a total guarantee of €91.8 billion.
These figures have been little discussed as they are part of the ongoing negotiations on the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) 2021-2027.
Green transition. In recent days, the political debate has focused on the share of the investments of the InvestEU programme to be devoted to the fight against climate change. MEPs will not vote on any amendments to this, but will simply endorse the position of the Committee on Industry (ITRE), which set this minimum threshold at 30%. However, in January 2019, MEPs had advocated for a 40% target (see EUROPE 12174/4).
This setback is very badly perceived on the left of the political spectrum. It was denounced on Friday 23 October by the WWF, which directly attacked the co-rapporteurs - Irene Tinagli (S&D, Italy) and José Manuel Fernandes (EPP, Portugal) - before retracting its position. However, the compatibility of this threshold of 30% with the increase to -60% of the EU's greenhouse gas emission reduction target for 2030 is questionable.
According to expert predictions, this issue should require the plenary session to take a position, perhaps at the November mini plenary session, before interinstitutional negotiations with the Member States begin.
In the Council of the European Union, the Member States are also working on the revision of the InvestEU programme, taking into account the reduction of the European public guarantee to €23.48 billion and the removal of the strategic investment component imposed by the European Council.
Compared to an earlier proposal by the German EU Council Presidency (see EUROPE 12553/3), the third German compromise text breaks down the public guarantee on which the InvestEU Fund will rely to attract additional private investment.
The breakdown is as follows: - €8.2 billion (35% of the total) for sustainable infrastructure; - €6.5 billion (27.5%) for research, innovation and digitalisation; - €6.5 billion (27.5%) for SMEs; - €2.35 billion (10%) for the social sector and skills.
The idea of financing certain strategic investments under the four windows of the future programme, in particular to stimulate green and digital transitions or to increase the EU's resilience to crises, is gaining ground. The same goes for the idea of creating a horizontal regime under the Just Transition Mechanism to foster a ‘just transition’ across the four investment windows of the InvestEU programme.
See the third compromise proposal of the German Presidency: https://bit.ly/3osjT3f (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)