EA coordinator for ECON commission,
Mr Tadeusz Truskolaski, addressed the Vice-President of the European Commission Mr Jyrki Katainen during the structured dialogue on the implementation of EFSI funds at local and regional level. Speaking also in his capacity as chair of the Less Developed Regions Intergroup, Mr Truskolaski pointed out that currently most of the projects are implemented in developed regions, creating a geographical division and also fail to provide investments where they are most needed, namely in less developed regions.
Given the co-financing requirements associated with EFSI funds, the risk that smaller, less wealthy regions, will find it difficult to provide their share of the contribution is a strong concern, the EA coordinator pointed out. As the possibility of creating investment platforms together with regional banks that should provide equity for the projects was underlined as a modality of reducing the public burden of co-financing, Mr Truskolaski brought up the example of Poland, where banks tend to be centralized, having branches of those banks instead of regional banks. Whether there are any financial incentives for banks to co-finance such investments was inquired.
When the European Fund for Strategic Investments was launched in 2015, EU regions and cities expressed serious concerns about the lack of involvement of local and regional authorities and the risk of widening development gaps by focusing the fund's intervention in the most competitive areas and business sectors. Over six months after the start of EFSI operations, Vice-President Katainen reassured ECON members and representatives of the main associations of local and regional authorities that the fund is already supporting 136 000 SMEs across Europe.
