On Wednesday 16 April, the Member States’ ambassadors to the European Union (Coreper) adopted the Council of the EU’s negotiating position on the revision of the InvestEU programme, designed to attract additional private investment to the EU.
According to several diplomatic sources, the changes made to the European Commission’s initial proposal are minor (see EUROPE 13588/4).
The Member States are not changing the increase of around €2.5 billion (from €26.2 billion to €28.6 billion) between now and 2027 in the public guarantee from the EU budget, which is used to cover losses on investment projects supported by European funds. This increase should make it possible to attract €25 billion in additional investment in the EU’s political priorities.
The Council also endorses the possibility for the InvestEU programme to re-use budgetary resources (‘reflows’) from previous financial instruments or programmes, such as the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI), the debt instrument of the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF), and the InnovFin Facility. This approach would attract a further €25 billion of private investment.
The legislative proposal also aims to reduce the administrative burden associated with implementing the InvestEU programme, with the Commission estimating savings of up to €350 million.
In particular, the Member States approved the revision of the definition of SMEs to take account of the specific nature of social economy enterprises. They are reducing the number of indicators for which entities implementing the InvestEU programme will have to report when operations are less than €100,000. The frequency of reporting obligations for these partner entities has also been reduced, from half-yearly to annual.
At the European Parliament, the Committees on Budgets (BUDG) and Economic and Monetary Affairs (ECON) are not expected to adopt their positions until June, with a view to a vote at the plenary session in July. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)