InvestEU is Europe's key investment support programme for the new funding
period, replacing a number of pre-existing financial instruments with one
tool, and building on the experience of the European Fund for Strategic
Investments, EFSI. InvestEU will provide the Union with crucial long-term
funding, crowding in private investment in support of a sustainable
recovery from the coronavirus pandemic and thereby help to build a greener,
more digital and more resilient European economy. InvestEU is expected to
mobilise more than €370 billion of additional investment in the EU across
four policy windows: sustainable infrastructure; research, innovation and
digitisation; SMEs; and social investment and skills.
Local and regional authorities are responsible for more than half of public
investment in the EU, and our cities and regions do not only act as
investors themselves, but are also involved as investment partners,
planners, regulators of private investment as well as facilitators, leading
or participating in efforts to attract new public or private investments in
their area. As a result, InvestEU is a major opportunity for them, and
their involvement is also crucial in order for the programme to succeed.
With the final approval and start of InvestEU now imminent, the European
Commission is organizing, an
InvestEU launch event
on 18 March 2021, which will provide an opportunity to learn more about the
key elements of the programme: the InvestEU Fund, the Advisory Hub and the
Portal.
As a single investment support mechanism for the 2021-2027 period, InvestEU
aims to bring together various EU financial instruments with a more
flexible, simplified and efficient framework. The rationale behind the new
programme lies within the evaluations of the previous multiannual financial
framework (2014-2020), which have underlined that the variety of financial
instruments has led to severe complexity, overlaps in their scope and
absence of compatible rules. Low infrastructure investment rates in the
Union, in particular since the financial crisis, have undermined the EU's
ability to boost sustainable growth, competitiveness and convergence.
InvestEU aims to be part of the answer to these problems to help meet the
Union's sustainability targets, including the Union’s commitments towards
the 2030 energy and climate targets and the Sustainable Development Goals.