The European Commission presents this Tuesday a proposal to review the EU budget for the period 2024-2027, with a focus on green and technological investments and the reconstruction of Ukraine, which will enter into force on January 1.
In a draft of the proposal to review the EU budget for the period 2024-2027, which will be made public this Tuesday and to which Lusa had access, the community executive suggests the creation of the Strategic Technologies Platform for Europe (STEP). , a kind of European sovereign wealth fund that “will reinforce and take advantage of current EU instruments for the rapid provision of financial support”, complementing existing programs to invest in clean technologies, biotechnologies and digitization.
The idea is, as the European leaders asked the European Commission, “to guarantee the full mobilization of available financing and existing financial instruments and to use them in a more flexible way, in order to provide timely and specific support in strategic sectors”, Being in causes financing obtained through programs such as InvestEU, Horizon Europe, Innovation Fund, European Defense Fund, Recovery and Resilience Mechanism and cohesion policy funds, according to the draft to which Lusa had access.
This new European sovereign wealth fund aims, therefore, to reinforce the EU’s strategic investment in key sectors of high technology and renewable energy, allowing it to compete with China and the United States, at a time when these countries are advancing with massive public support for the ‘green’ investments.
This is one of the proposals of the community executive regarding the review of the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF), the long-term budget of the EU for 2021-2027, which together with the EU Recovery Fund amounts to 2,018 million euros at current prices (1.8 million euros at 2018 prices), in a response adopted in 2020 to repair the economic and social damage caused by the pandemic and contribute to the digital and ecological transition.
The European Commission justifies the review with the fact that, “since 2020, the Union has faced a series of unprecedented challenges”, related to the energy crisis, the war in Ukraine caused by the Russian invasion and high inflation.
Another of the priorities stipulated by the European Commission in the review of the MFF is the recovery of Ukraine after the war, for which reason an “integrated and flexible instrument” is proposed that will allow it to advance with loans, grants and guarantees for the reconstruction of the country.
So far, all the support mobilized by the EU and its Member States to support Ukraine and its people amounts to €70 billion.
It is up to the co-legislators (deputies and countries) to decide on this revision proposal, which will enter into force on January 1.
Source: TSF
