This preliminary agreement between the European Parliament, Member States and the Commission is a crucial step towards the creation of the InvestEU programme, which will bring together under one roof the European Fund for Strategic Investments and 13 other EU financial instruments currently supporting investment in the EU, making the financing easier to access.

President Jean-Claude Juncker said: “Europe is in much better shape than it was a few years ago. Thanks to the Investment Plan for Europe we launched in late 2014, investment is back. But we can and must do more to boost jobs and growth. This is where InvestEU comes in. Building on the success of what we've already achieved, we will be able to use public funding to support strategically important projects across the EU. Today's agreement could not be more timely and means EU funds will be able to start delivering results on the ground sooner rather than later.”

Vice-President Jyrki Katainen, responsible for Jobs, Growth, Investment and Competitiveness, said: “InvestEU will be our flagship programme for a sustainable, resilient and competitive European economy. It will further boost investment in key areas like artificial intelligence, circular economy, climate action, as well as social inclusion and skills, with the added bonus of making access to finance easier and more transparent for beneficiaries. I thank and congratulate the Parliament and Member States for their tireless efforts that led to today's agreement.”

InvestEU builds on the success of the Juncker Plan, or Investment Plan for Europe. Similar to the Juncker Plan, InvestEU is an EU budget guarantee. The guarantee will be at least €38 billion, set to mobilise at least €650 billion. The InvestEU Fund will be accompanied by the InvestEU Advisory Hub – tailored support to project promoters – and the InvestEU Portal – an easily accessible pipeline of mature projects for potential investors.

InvestEU is a partnership with the European Investment Bank Group (EIB), the EU Bank, and will be open to other implementing partners as well.

This preliminary agreement is still subject to formal approval by European Parliament and Council. The budgetary aspects of InvestEU are subject to the overall agreement on the next long-term EU budget, which the Commission proposed in May 2018.

Latest figures from the European Investment Bank, the Commission's strategic partner on the Juncker Plan, show that by March 2019, the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI) had mobilised almost €390 billion of investments. Operations approved under EFSI so far represent a total financing volume of €72.5 billion in all 28 Member States. The EIB has approved 518 infrastructure projects supported by EFSI for €53.9 billion, while the European Investment Fund has approved 537 financing agreements for SMEs worth €18.6 billion. 929,000 small and medium companies will benefit from these agreements.

For more information

Factsheet: What is InvestEU?

Factsheet: InvestEU - what will it finance?

Press release on the InvestEU proposal (6 June 2018): InvestEU Programme to support jobs, growth and innovation in Europe

Proposal for a Regulation establishing the InvestEU Programme (6 June 2018)

EU budget for the future

Follow Vice-President Katainen on Twitter: @jyrkikatainen

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