"The Juncker Plan must take on board the concerns of local and regional authorities, if it is to succeed in mobilising private capital, maximising the impact of public resources and boosting investor confidence in the market" – the EPP Group in the European Committee of the Regions shadow rapporteur, Wim van de Donk (EPP/NL) stated during the CoR plenary session today.

"Let us not forget that we, the local and regionally elected politicians are responsible for more than a half of total public investment" he added before defending his amendments to the CoR opinion on the Investment Plan and European Fund for Strategic Investments, which was largely reshaped by the EPP Group's positions,  before being adopted today.

"We have succeeded in convincing our partners that keeping the EFSI regulations simple and not too complex will maximize access for SME's and mid-sized companies to the proposed investments", the EPP/CoR Group shadow rapporteur underlined. "We need to see quicker action to open the stream of investment as soon as possible but without prevailing on the quality. We are ready to contribute and provide our local expertise, since it is clear that it is not the availability of money that is the problem but the information and organisation of good bankable projects. This way we could contribute to the clear selection criteria being established and implemented."

EPP/CoR Members called upon the European Commission to ensure that any budget taken from the Connecting Europe Facility and Horizon2020 will be invested through EFSI in projects with similar objectives and in line with the EU's priorities. In this sense, the EPP Group in the Committee of the Regions believes that the scope of the investment plans should contribute to the achievement of the Union's economic, social and territorial cohesion. Moreover, these budgets should only be tapped if all other options for flexibility under the European budget have been exhausted.

The EPP Group supports the inclusion of regional and local authorities in the creation of a transparent pipeline of current and potential future investment projects in the Union, alongside the Commission, European Investment Bank and the Member States.  It also wants to receive the evaluation reports assessing the results of the EFSI.