Commission wants to extend its investment plan
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The European Investment Bank. The €21-billion EU guarantee helped raise more investment than expected. (Photo: Forgemind ArchiMedia)
By Eric Maurice
The European Commission said on Wednesday (1 June) it would like to extend its investment plan after its scheduled end in 2018.
It said it would present a proposal in the autumn but did not specify for how long it would seek an extension from the EU member states and parliament.
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The announcement came as the EU executive provided figures to demonstrate that its flagship "Juncker plan" launched 18 months ago by the president of the commission is working.
"The investment plan is functioning well, the EFSI is doing well," commission vice-president Jyrki Katainen said, referring to the European Fund for Strategic Investments, the structure that was set up to oversee funding of projects.
So far, Katainen said, the €21-billion guarantee provided by the EU budget and the European Investment Bank (EIB) helped raise more investment than expected.
He said that 64 industrial, investment and infrastructure projects have been approved and more than 140,00 small and medium enterprises (SMEs) benefited from funding.
Overall, more than €100 billion have been raised. This is almost a third of the total €315 billion the commission expects to raise in three years.
Katainen also said that the commission was thinking of setting up EFSI-like scheme in developping countries, in order to "stabilse the situation in vulnerable countries".
