EU will have 200,000 million euros for digitization projects

The European Union reached an agreement to mobilize close to 20,000 million euros that will be used to invest in renewable and digitization projects in the Member States, as part of the stimulus package to speed up the recovery from the pandemic and in the face of the uncertainty derived from the Ukraine war.

The agreement signed between the European Commission, the European Investment Bank and the European Investment Fund is endowed with a budget of 19,650 million euros that will be used to finance projects throughout the EU in four areas: sustainable infrastructure, research, innovation and digitalisation, small and medium-sized enterprises and social investment and training, as part of the InvestEU programme.

An additional 270 million euros will be added to this figure for market development, development of professional skills and project advisory services in them. This financing can be used to help economies face the uncertainties of global security problems.

“This deal comes at just the right time as we emerge from the pandemic and face growing geopolitical uncertainty”, European Commission Vice President for Economic Affairs Valdis Dombrovskis said in a statement.

Thus, the InvestEU program is endowed with 26.2 million euros in guarantees to finance investment operations that are estimated to mobilize at least 372,000 million euros of additional investment until 2027 throughout Europe. In addition, it is expected that the first projects of the program will receive their endorsement in April, after being presented to the Investment Commission.

Source: dpa