European Fund for Strategic Investments: focus on low carbon, clean energy and resource efficiency investments

The European Commission President Juncker’s ‘Investment plan for growth and jobs’ is aiming at mobilising EUR 315 billion of additional investments by 2018. A proposed regulation setting up the framework of the EFSI is currently negotiated in the European Parliament and the Council and its adoption is envisaged for June 2015.

This briefing, prepared by Bankwatch, Counter Balance, Friends of the Earth Europe and WWF Europe stresses that this regulation should give clarity on how the fund will contribute to the achievement of EU long-term objectives, its added-value for the EU and the expected benefits for European citizens: all projects benefiting from the fund should explicitly accelerate the transition of Europe’s economies, infrastructure investments should aim at the decarbonisation, decentralization and decrease of energy and transport systems, R&D focusing on the absolute decoupling of resource use and production.

Background

European Commission President Juncker’s “Investment plan for growth and jobs”, an EU budget based investment initiative carried out by the European Investment Bank (EIB), is controversially discussed throughout Europe as issues of priorities, scope, governance, transparency and accountability remain unresolved.

By 2018 European Fund for Strategic Investment (ESIF) is aiming at mobilising private investments worth EUR 315 billion into energy, transport and environmental infrastructure, as well as information and communication infrastructure, education, health, renewable energy and resource efficiency, research and development.