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.