InvestEU programme (debate)
Speaker: Irene TINAGLI (Italy, Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament / Partito Democratico)
Date: 2021-03-09

  Irene Tinagli,  rapporteur. – Madam President, we are at the end of a great adventure that began in 2018 with the first Commission proposal. It was a long and bumpy journey, but we can now celebrate an important success. I would like to thank the present and past components of the negotiating team in the Parliament, and especially my co—rapporteur, José Manuel Fernandes, for what we’ve done together.
In this term we went through some exciting moments, for example when, in May 2020, the Commission represented the InvestEU proposal with a very ambitious budget, but also through moments of great concern, for example when Member States decided, during the July 2020 European Council, on a very severe cut to the InvestEU budget line, basically making it a marginal and useless programme.
We did not get discouraged. We worked to give a worthy heir to the Juncker Plan and also to create an ambitious programme capable of facing the challenges of our times. Looking at the text of the final agreement that we will vote on today, we can say that our commitment has been rewarded. There are more funds, there are more ambitious environmental targets, and there is more national European synergy, thanks to the possibility for other implementing partners to promote projects.
But our real success has been to place InvestEU at the heart of Next Generation EU. InvestEU is a long—term investment programme with a particular focus on SMEs. Its four windows cover the major objectives that the Union has set for the coming years: sustainability, innovation, research, social infrastructure. InvestEU is a programme that, perhaps more than others, highlights the paradigm shift that has taken place in the Union. The real innovation of Next Generation EU is not just the money made available to Member States. Next Generation EU is much more than that. It is the acknowledgement that there are individual and collective needs that are currently not fully satisfied. The financial crisis of 2008 and the economic crisis caused by the COVID pandemic have shown us that there is a lack of supply of goods and services that are necessary for the well-being of citizens and firms, and bridging this gap is the challenge of our time.
InvestEU is one of the responses that the Union has put in place, but InvestEU is not just about resilience: it is a tool for recovery. First of all, Parliament fought hard to create a synergy with the Recovery and Resilience Facility and, thanks to our battle, Member States will now be able to divert up to four percent of their funds from the recovery fund to guarantee investment projects eligible for InvestEU.
We also managed to resurrect a fundamental tool for the recovery that the European Council of July 2020 had basically eliminated: the Solvency Support Instrument. My colleague, Mr Fernandes, has already mentioned that, but I would like to underline the importance of this tool. Now, both the European and the national compartments of InvestEU will be able to provide capital support to small and medium—sized enterprises that got into trouble due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It is perhaps the most important result that we, as a Parliament, have achieved. But let me say that, without the strong commitment of Commissioner Paolo Gentiloni during the negotiations, we probably would not have made it. So thank you, Paolo.
Our work is not done yet. We still have to scrutinise the delegated acts, in particular the one on investment guidance, and we have to appoint the governance bodies, the advisory board, the steering board and the investment committee. During one of the trilogues of InvestEU, I realised that the majority of the people that were present in the room during the negotiations were women. InvestEU is therefore the result of the work and the effort of many women. So it would be nice if the Commission, the EIB, the implementing partners, but also the Committee of the Regions, the European Economic and Social Committee and the European Parliament, kept this in mind when they have to appoint their representatives in these bodies – not because it is a provision in the regulation, but because it’s the right thing to do. So thank you very much everybody.