The European Council is now scrambling to find a common position on the plan ahead of next week’s leaders’ summit in Brussels. Unless one is forthcoming, the plan described by Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker as his “investment offensive” to kick-start Europe’s stalled economy may misfire. The Commission has to date failed to drum up member-state support for the fund, which was announced in November.
That leaves the plan that had been the new Commission’s centrepiece policy for reviving the European economy reliant on a €16bn guarantee from the EU budget and a €5bn contribution from the EIB. Smaller EU countries are wary of making a big contribution, warning that the fund could undermine other EU investment models.
“It would […] be extremely difficult for us to re-direct or re-shape the instruments that we use and are about to use in the 2014-20 programming period,” the Czech Republic’s secretary of state for EU affairs Tomáš Prouza, said in an article on EuropeanVoice.com.
Even EU members that appear set to contribute are treading carefully. Luis de Guindos, Spain’s finance minister, told journalists on Tuesday that while his government is “predisposed” to contributing, he would need to know more about what the projects would be and what the financial arrangements would look. The reluctance of some EU member states is raising concern in the European Parliament.
Roberto Gualtieri, who chairs the European Parliament’s economic and monetary affairs committee, said EU member states need to be “on the same wavelength” on the fund. “They need to contribute to this in a concerted way.”
However, one German socialist MEP has expressed increasing frustration with Germany’s reluctance to get involved. “We cannot expect anything from Greece,” the MEP told European Voice. “But Germany? Which is the only member whose economy is strong enough?”
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