European Funds for Strategic Investment: Polis and UITP alliance to keep CEF and Horizon 2020 funds for innovation and transport

Following up on the Juncker Plan to boost European Economy for the next decade, the European Funds for Strategic Investment (EFSI) represents the financial programme dedicated to public authorities in order to invest in infrastructures that could be economically viable in a short term (less than three years). Foreseen to unlock 315 billion euros, this Fund however requires public money to trigger private investment. In this perspective, the European Commission proposed early January to reallocate more than 10% of the Connecting Europe Facility Programme and from the Horizon 2020 programme available funds to the EFSI.

In Polis views, this reallocation is considered at the expense of infrastructure and innovation projects, including sustainable urban and public transport projects, which are eligible under the CEF and Horizon 2020 programmes but have a long return on investment, therefore unlikely eligible under the EFSI.

In that perspective, Polis and UITP shared their concern through an open letter sent to all members of the European Parliament calling for the deletion of the articles referring to such reallocation and advocated for the transfer of unused funds instead. The letter can be found here. This dossier will be voted on 14th of April at the European Parliament and is foreseen for plenary in June 2015.