Cities and regions demand clarity on announced €300bn EU investment plan

The Committee of the Regions (CoR) ad hoc Commission on the EU budget has asked where the resources to fund the €300 billion EU plan, announced by European Commission President-elect Jean-Claude Juncker, will come from and how regional authorities will be involved in rolling out future projects. "We sincerely hope that we will not see any repetition of what happened with the €120 billion plan for growth which was supposed to accompany the Fiscal Compact - and which came to nothing," the Committee's First Vice-President Catiuscia Marini said.

This message was included in a draft opinion led by First Vice-President Marini who is also President of the Region of Umbria in Italy. The opinion -  Promoting quality of public spending in matters subject to EU action - was adopted by the CoRs' commission on the EU budget and reiterates the CoRs' call to separate EU cohesion policy co-financing from national debt calculations: "National governments and the European Commission must find a quick solution to exclude Structural Fund co-financing from national debt calculations. They must also shed light on the flexibility margins for growth measures allowed under current rules and boost the European Investment Bank's loan capacity."

While EU governments and European institutions are caught up in political and institutional wrangling on the balance between austerity and investment, the CoR is striving to make people understand that after years of budget cuts which have whittled away strategic spending in pursuit of growth, the time has come to deliver a real European strategy for renewed investment. The draft opinion written by Marini, calls for this strategy to focus both on rules (current criteria for calculating member states' structural deficits) and on resources (mobilizing new public and private funds by giving the European Investment Bank a more pivotal role, with €5 billion from the EU budget earmarked to guarantee new loans for infrastructure projects).

BUDG commission members are also asking the European Commission to provide information on the flexibility margins laid down by the Stability and Growth Pact in a communication explaining how it intends to use these margins to support growth and jobs.

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