The Juncker fund - if implemented, which projects ?

The new € 315 billion European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI) will use € 21 billion EIB/EU money to trigger other public and private contributions. Still the result seems to be only questions.

Will public and private actors contribute as intended ? The signals are  unclear. Germany´s finance minister Schauble said ealier this week that his government is not in favour of national contributions to the fund. However, the German government would contribute through state-owned development bank KfW. No member state has formally announced its intention to contribute to EFSI. If public co-financing will be excluded from calculations of budgetary adjustments, this can make participation a bit more tempting for some of them.

How will the management of the fund be organised ? The Commission proposes that member states  contributing will have a seat at a steering board for the fund. But now several of the finance ministers say that governments should refrain from being represented in the steering board and should not entail voting rights. And why is there need for a steering board, can´t EIB do the job ?

Will the fund be in accordance with the state-aid regulation ? EIB president Hoyer wants more clarity.

Will the fund be of interest for private investors ?  The carrot is that public money work as guarantee, if projects make losses the publicly-funded portion would be first in the line to suffer financial losses.

Will the new fund influence the functioning of the Structural funds and the research programme Horizon 2020 in a negative way ?

And what about the projects ? Will there be enough good proposals ? That is of course a crucial question. The idea is to send project proposals from member countries through a "pipeline" system to EIB. The European Union´s investments task force has already identified 2000 projects waiting for funding across the 28-nation bloc. But how many of them are economically viable and can foster European competitiveness ? Baden-Wuerttemberg´s Minister for Europe, Peter Friedrich, is not impressed. He tells that the nearly 60 projects Germany is pursuing, together meant to boost investments in Germany with € 90 billions, include outdated ideas and dead ends. The list needs a reworking, otherwise regions and others will lose out.