Financial instruments under the European Structural and Investment Funds

Summary:

Summaries of the data on the progress made in financing and implementing the financial instruments for the programming period 2014-2020 in accordance with Article 46 of Regulation (EU) No 1303/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council.

This is the first year for the 2014-2020 programming period that the Commission has produced the summaries of the data on the progress made in financing and implementing financial instruments (FIs) supported by European Structural and Investment Funds (ESIF). The summaries are based on data reported by the managing authorities in accordance with Article 46 of the Regulation (EU) No 1303/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council (CPR). In this first exercise the information in the summaries concerns cumulatively the years 2014 and 2015. As the prominence of FIs as a delivery tool grows in the programming period 2014-2020, so the availability of wide-ranging information on their use becomes increasingly important for all stakeholders. Compared to the programming period of 2007-2013, reporting requirements on the progress made in financing and implementing ESIF FIs 2014-2020 have both been included in the legislation from the outset and reinforced to include periodic information on revolving amounts, leverage, performance and contribution of the instruments to the achievement of the indicators of the priority concerned. The results of this first exercise demonstrate that, despite the early stage of programme implementation, managing authorities across no less than 21 Member States can already report progress on FIs as of 31.12.2015, and some of these FIs are already demonstrating concrete results in terms of leverage or resources returned for further investments. It also shows significant differences across MS regarding the roll out of FIs. Some MS have not yet completed ex-ante assessments, whilst in others there are FIs that are already on a second round of investments. The overall outlook is positive. Nevertheless, the Commission will continue to work actively with the managing authorities in the coming months to further boost the optimal use of FIs, including exploring potential ESIF/EFSI complementarities.