Von der Leyen moves to merge green, defence, space funds in new EU budget law
The blueprint for a long-awaited European Competitiveness Fund (ECF) as part of the bloc's coming seven-year spending plan is the Commission's flagship reform to revamp Europe's productivity gap.
The aim is to create a dedicated funding pot to help catch up with the US and China across the 2028-2034 budget. The draft regulation contains no numbers, but says the ECF will merge activities under up to 14 different budget lines listed in the current €1.2 trillion seven-year budget.
Those include the Innovation Fund, Digital Europe Programme, and the €2 billion component of the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) dealing with digital projects. It also covers the European Defence Fund, the Act in Support of Ammunition Production (ASAP), the European Defence Industry Reinforcement through Common Procurement Act (EDIRPA), the European Defence Industry Programme (EDIP), EU4Health and the European Space Programme, satellite programme IRIS², and InvestEU.
The huge new cash pot will aim to plug some of Europe's investment gap by using public funds to free up larger amounts of private capital, according to the document.
However, the biggest EU programmes remain outside the consolidation effort or are absorbed only in part. For example, Horizon Europe (€93 billion), a big part of the Innovation Fund (€40 billion) and the bulk of the Connecting Europe Facility (€20 billion) dealing with transport and energy projects, will remain mostly outside the ECF.
(jp)
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