The investment plan for Europe : information and communication technology : state of play, 13 January 2016.
Date: 2016-03-25
Institutions: Directorate-General for Communication
Subjects: EU investment, digital technology, digitisation, information technology, transmission network

I N F O R M AT I O N   A N D   C O M M U N I C AT I O N   T E C H N O LO G Y

Sectoral coverage (some projects cover several sectors)

Mid-Caps/SMEs

ICT

3

4

8

Transport

Energy

17

5

23

Health

RDI

Environment/ 
resource efficiency

Out of the 42 projects approved by the EIB so far, three projects are  
in the ICT sector. 

The projects are located in 
two Member States.

SE

FI

EE

LV

LT

PL

SK

HU

CZ

AT

SI HR

RO

BG

EL

IE

UK

DK

NL

BE

DE

LU

2

FR

1

IT

PT

ES

MT

CY

The Commission is committed to completing 
the  Digital  Single  Market,  one  of  its  10 
priorities.

The Investment Plan could help to meet the Digital Agenda’s 
broadband targets.  Priority  should  be  given to supporting 
greenfield deployments of digital infrastructure, investments in 
innovative digital services and digitalisation of the traditional 
sectors (Industry 4.0).

With the Investment Plan, three main types of investments in
the digital sector may be promoted.
• Large  greenfield  digital  infrastructure  projects,  with 
deployment  of  the  latest  technologies  to  allow  access  to 
ultrafast broadband across the EU’s territory. These projects 
can  originate  under  national  broadband  plans  or  regional 
initiatives,  or  be  led  by  private  companies  willing  to  invest 
in  future-proof  infrastructure  (e.g.  FTTx)  and  digital  service 
infrastructures (cloud services, high-performance computing).
• Investment Platforms would be key to making a substantial 
impact on the digital sector, since they will allow the European 
Fund for Strategic Investment (EFSI) to address smaller ticket 
size  projects,  which  are  numerous  in  the  ICT  sector.  Under 
the  Connecting  Europe  Facility  (CEF),  advanced  discussions 
are  ongoing  with  the  European  Investment  Bank  (EIB)  and 
the National Promotional Banks on the establishment of an 
Investment Platform for smaller broadband  projects,  which  
could  be  further  expanded under the EFSI. Similar schemes 
will be explored for digital services and digital skills, among 
others.
• The collaboration with the European Investment Fund 
for  SMEs  is  another  key  area  of  the  EFSI  with  a  strong 
impact  on  the  digital  sector.  The  digital  market  remains 
very fragmented in Europe, whereas SMEs are key actors in 
several digital sub-segments (e.g. photonics, cybersecurity).

Any coordination with the EFSI, and increased involvement of 
the European Investment Advisory Hub in the digital sector, 
will also be decisive to bring support to project promoters in 
structuring and implementing their digital projects. 
Higher  visibility  of  ICT  projects  could  be  ensured  via  the 
European Investment Project Portal.

THE INVESTMENT PLAN FOR EUROPESTATE OF PLAY13 January 2016List of projects in the ICT sector

FR Two high-speed broadband projects in France

(under assessment)

IT High-speed broadband roll-out in Italy  

(under assessment)

• Rolling  out  high-speed  fibre  broadband  in  rural  and  

remote areas of France

• Roll-out  of  upgraded  broadband  access  network  to  
provide  high-speed  broadband  (at  least  50  Mbps)  
in Italy

Print

ISBN 978-92-79-56241-9

doi:10.2775/426330

NA-04-16-147-EN-C

PDF

ISBN 978-92-79-56240-2

doi:10.2775/250416

NA-04-16-147-EN-N