NEWS

MEPs approved on December 12 to expand the European Fund for Strategic Investments, which mobilizes investment and finances innovative projects.

The so-called "Juncker plan", which finances a wide variety of projects in the European Union, will be extended until 2020 and its allocation will rise to 500,000 million euros.

In Spain, according to the November 2017 data of the European Commission, the financing under this investment plan amounts to 5,156 million euros and is expected to generate additional investments worth 30,812 million euros.

What is this investment plan?

This fund, initially endowed with 315,000 million euros, was established in 2015 to mobilize public and private investment and boost the recovery of the European economy over a period of three years. It was proposed by the president of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, in response to the lack of investment during the crisis that hindered the financing of many innovative but high-risk projects.

The projects it finances are varied. They can be infrastructure, research and innovation, education, health, as well as information and communication technologies, among other areas.

The “Juncker plan”, which operates within the European Investment Bank, encourages the participation of private investments in new investment projects by taking part of the risk.

Results to date

In November 2017, according to the European Commission, this investment plan had financed projects with a total of 50,000 million euros to generate investments of more than 250,000 million euros.