Investment Plan for Europe: Evaluations give evidence to support its reinforcement

Three evaluations give evidence to the Commission's proposal to reinforce and expand the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI), the core of the Investment Plan for Europe, qualified by President Juncker as "our flagship policy."

The Investment Plan for Europe has already proven useful in encouraging a sustainable increase in investment across Member States.

Given the concrete results achieved since the Commission unveiled the Investment Plan two years ago, President Jean-Claude Juncker presented a proposal in his State of the Union address of 14 September to reinforce the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI) to boost investment further.

Three evaluations followed that proposal, including an independent evaluation that was foreseen when EFSI was set up. Their findings are summarised in today's Commission Communication and will feed into the legislative debate on the Commission's proposal with the European Parliament and Member States.

Member States committed at a summit of 27 in Bratislava on 16 September as well as at the October European Council to agreeing their negotiating position on the Commission's proposal at the Ecofin meeting of 6 December, taking into account the independent evaluation.

All three reports find that the EFSI has already increased access to financing as well as mobilised private capital, and identified areas in which the Investment Plan could be enhanced. The findings in the three evaluations are broadly addressed in the Commission's proposal to double the duration and capacity of the EFSI by extending, in a first step, its duration until the end of 2020 and increasing the total investment target from EUR 315 billion to at least half a trillion euros.