On Wednesday 24 June the favorable vote of the European Parliament with a large majority, the next day the formal ok also of the EU Council. Thus, in the short span of twenty-four hours, the birth of the EFSI, the European Fund for Strategic Investments, the financial instrument that came out of Jean-Claude Juncker's hat with the aim of giving new breath to an economy that continues to march at a slow pace in Europe after seven years of crisis. An instrument that aims to mobilize for investment in Europe 315 billion euros in three years.
The effectiveness is yet to be demonstrated, but the go-ahead for the Fund respects the times announced at the end of last November and reaffirmed several times by the President of the European Commission himself over the next seven months of the project's gestation. Which will take its first steps from the beginning of next July and which will be "fully operational" - they assure at Palazzo Berlaymont, seat of the European Executive - starting from September.
"Europe is turning the page: the past is behind us, investing means turning towards the future", was the message that Juncker addressed on 27 November last year "to all Europeans and the rest of the world" from the headquarters of the European Parliament in Strasbourg. Where – when asked where it would be possible to find such an amount of money in a European Union whose annual budget corresponds to just one per cent of the sum of the budgets of the 28 member states – he replied that the key to the success of the Feis would have been the choice to replace financial aid with guarantees, and that this would have been a source of attraction for private and public investors.
Explanation confirmed by the distinguished gentleman who sat next to him, Werner Hoyer, the president of the European Investment Bank, the medium-long term credit institution participated by the EU institutions, which for years has enjoyed the triple A rating of credit agencies and which supports the European Commission in this demanding challenge.
Le guarantees which will act as a driving force for investments are charged to the EU budget for 16 billion and by the EIB (the European Investment Bank) for another 5 billion. In total 21 billion, a sum that will allow the EIB to issue bonds "for a total amount equal to three times the amount of the guarantees and to use the money to co-finance projects together with private investors", explain the insiders. Who add that “in this way every euro of public money should generate a total of 15 euros in public and private investmentthus bringing the total amount of investments that could potentially be activated over a three-year period to 315 billion.
To facilitate the coverage of these guarantees, the law just approved by the European Parliament and the Council (which in European legislation is called a regulation) provides that, in addition to the 5 billion made available by the EIB, the 16 billion paid by the European budget are taken into account gradually, as investment proposals arrive from both private and public entities.
If the forecasts of the Commission and the EIB are confirmed by reality, a large part of the Fund (to be exact, 240 million) will be destined for investments in the digital networks, energy and transport sectors. While the remaining 75 billion (always assuming that the ceiling of 315 billion is reached) will be directed towards small and medium-sized companies.
“Which in the entire European Union represent 99% of businesses and two thirds of the total number of employees”, underlines the Portuguese MEP José Manuele Fernandes, of the European People's Party, one of the rapporteurs of the law establishing the Fund. This means, in the opinion of the president of the European Parliament's economic affairs commission, the Italian Roberto Gualtieri, of the socialists & democrats group, that “the Juncker plan will be able to contribute effectively to the economic recovery in the European Union”.
The law establishing the European Fund for Strategic Investments, like most of the EU regulations and directives, was approved by the Strasbourg Assembly with a large majority: to be precise, there were 464 votes in favour, against 131, 19 abstentions. A majority that managed to "bring to the farm" some not irrelevant improvements of the provision: the reduction of the cuts concerning the Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme, the recovery of one billion from the 2014 and 2015 budgets, and the attribution to the same Parliament of the right to appoint the director general and the deputy director general of the FEIS.
