InvestEU - Performance

Programme in a nutshell

Concrete examples of achievements (*)

^{(*) Key achievements in the table state which period they relate to. Many come from the implementation of the predecessor programmes under the 2014-2020 multiannual financial framework. This is expected and is due to the multiannual life cycle of EU programmes and the projects they finance, where results often follow only after completion of the programmes.}

Budget for 2021-2027

Rationale and design of the programme

The InvestEU programme aims to ensure an additional boost to investments fostering recovery, resilience, green growth and employment in the EU over the 2021-2027 period. This goal is achieved by mobilising public and private financing sources, in order to provide long-term funding and support to companies and projects in line with the EU priorities in the current challenging economic and social context.

Furthermore, InvestEU will be an important vehicle to implement the REPowerEU Plan as well as the Green Deal Industrial Plan, aiming to accelerate clean tech and industrial innovation to reach the EU’s 2030 clean energy targets.

Budget

Budget programming (million EUR):

^{(*) Only Article 15(3) of the financial regulation.}

  Financial programming:
  + EUR 344.7 million (+ 11%)
  compared to the legal basis*

^{* Top-ups pursuant to Article 5 of the multiannual financial framework regulation are excluded from financial programming in this comparison.}

• Compared to the reference amount from the legal basis (EUR 3 067.71 million), the InvestEU appropriations include the amounts for 2022 stemming from the Cohesion and other additional Member State contributions to InvestEU Fund under Member State compartments and to the InvestEU Advisory Hub, the EFTA contributions as well as the assigned revenues (reflows) from the predecessor legacy instruments for 2021-2022.
• The frontloading of the financial programming of the InvestEU programme is mainly related to the strict deadlines applicable to the Next Generation EU funds (NGEU), under which implementing partners need to approve financing and investment operations corresponding to 60% of the NGEU budget by the end of 2022 and to 100% of the NGEU budget by the end of 2023.
• In addition, InvestEU contributed about EUR 372 million for the European Investment Fund (EIF) capital increase, in 2021, as planned under the InvestEU regulation. Furthermore, the Commission has already signed guarantee agreements with seven implementing partners as of end-2022 for a total guarantee amount of more than EUR 21 billion.
• Also, overall considering the narrow ceilings over the whole multiannual financial framework period, it was necessary to start building up the provisioning in the first 3 years to spread this over the whole period while respecting the annual ceilings of the multiannual financial framework.
• An amount of EUR 35.9 million were transferred to the InvestEU in 2022 including: (i) EUR 30 million under the InvestEU Guarantee – Greece compartment of the CPF, (ii) EUR 5.75 million under InvestEU Advisory Hub as external assigned revenues from Romania and Greece for the Member State compartment, and (iii) EUR 172 900 in commitment appropriations from the EFTA countries (Norway and Iceland) for the Portal and ancillary measures and the support expenditure budget.

Budget performance – implementation

Multiannual cumulative implementation rate at the end of 2022 (million EUR):

Annual voted budget implementation (million EUR)⁽¹⁾:

^{(1) Voted appropriations (C1) only.}

Contribution to horizontal priorities

Green budgeting

Contribution to green budgeting priorities (million EUR):

^{(*) The InvestEU contribution to clean air and biodiversity is estimated by dividing the financing amounts supporting clean air and biodiversity by the InvestEU leverage and taking into account the InvestEU provisioning rate.}

• InvestEU places significant emphasis on investments that have a positive impact on the climate and the environment. The programme aims to allocate 30% of its overall financial envelope to climate objectives, while 60% of investments from the sustainable infrastructure window will support the EU objectives on climate and the environment. These targets provide strong incentives for financial institutions to develop financial products in line with the climate ambition of the programme.
• Overall, InvestEU is expected to help mobilise more than EUR 110 billion to meet EU climate goals. For example, at present, the EIB is already deploying a dedicated ‘green transition product’. The Nordic Investment Bank will provide loan financing to several renewable energy projects (notably wind power) in the Nordic and Baltic countries.
• To guide the implementation of the InvestEU financial products, the Commission has published sustainability proofing guidance⁽¹⁾ and climate- and environment-tracking guidance⁽²⁾. Investments above EUR 10 million will be subject to sustainability proofing to identify, assess and mitigate climate, environmental or social risks. All InvestEU-supported investment will be tracked in terms of environmental and climate impact against the methodology issued by the Commission. Both guidance documents integrate, where possible, the EU taxonomy framework. InvestEU implementing partners have a choice to track the achievement of the climate and environmental targets under the sustainable infrastructure window using the EU-taxonomy-aligned criteria or the InvestEU climate and environmental markers. As of 31 December 2022, 41% of the aggregate InvestEU signed financing was tracked using EU-taxonomy-aligned criteria for the purpose of the determination of the climate and environmental objectives⁽³⁾.
• For the purpose of clean air tracking, InvestEU assigns a 40% coefficient to the amounts reported on climate mitigation and pollution interventions, which amounts to EUR 1 066.7 million of signed InvestEU financing supporting these specific objectives.
• In addition to these ambitious climate targets, the InvestEU Fund set up a dedicated scheme to generate additional investment for the benefit of just transition territories – those territories that will be the most affected by the socioeconomic consequences of the green transition – in complement to the Juts Transition Fund and the public sector loan facility.

^{(1) EUR-Lex - 52021XC0713(02) - EN - EUR-Lex (europa.eu).
(2) InvestEU C&E T C_2021_3316_Main & Annexes_EN.pdf (europa.eu).
(3) InvestEU implementation is currently in a ramp-up phase, and the InvestEU climate and environmental targets apply at the end of the signature period. Any results are therefore preliminary indications of the progress made so far.}

Gender

Contribution to gender equality (million EUR) (*):

<sup>(*) Based on the applied gender contribution methodology, the following scores are attributed at the most granular level of intervention possible:
- 2: interventions the principal objective of which is to improve gender equality;
- 1: interventions that have gender equality as an important and deliberate objective but not as the main reason for the intervention;
- 0: non-targeted interventions (interventions that are expected to have no significant bearing on gender equality);
- 0*: score to be assigned to interventions with a likely but not yet clear positive impact on gender equality.</sup>

• In 2022, the InvestEU programme as a whole obtained a score of 0*.
• Specific parts of the programme could have received a higher score based on their contribution to gender equality, however the EU budget allocated to these initiatives is not available. These initiatives include the following.
  • The gender smart advisory initiative, which aims to provide tailored advice and capacity building to improve access to financing for female-founded and female-led companies. Its key objectives include increasing female representation in the investment community (notably by identifying barriers, strengthening women’s capacity, challenging unconscious biases, etc.), and increasing awareness of the funding gap and of missed opportunities. This will be achieved through the organisation of workshops or networking events and through collaboration with existing initiatives of the Commission, the EIB Group or the wider entrepreneurship and investment community.
  • EIF equity financing, where gender smart financing is one of the horizontal topics implemented across the different thematic policy areas supported by the EIF equity products:
    • the infrastructure and climate funds product of the sustainable infrastructure window / social investment and skills window;
    • the intermediated equity product of the SMEs window / research, innovation and digitalisation window;
    • the social impact equity product of the social investment and skills window.
  • The Commission and the EIF defined gender criteria with respect to equity intermediaries, focusing on leadership aspects captured at different levels. If an intermediary complies with these criteria, InvestEU can finance up to 50% of the total commitments of the fund (as opposed to 25%).
• In addition, the indicative goal of the SMEs window / research, innovation and digitalisation window intermediated equity product (under which the EIF is expected to build a portfolio of investments of around EUR 5.5 billion) is for 25% of all its intermediaries to follow InvestEU’s leadership gender criteria, including: (i) a management team composed of at least one third of female partners, (ii) 40% female representation in the senior investment team, and (iii) at least 40% female representation in the investment committee.

Digital

Contribution to digital transition (million EUR):

^{(*) The digital contribution of InvestEU is estimated by dividing the mobilised amount of investment supporting digitalisation by the overall InvestEU multiplier (i.e. ratio between expected investment mobilised and the total amount of the EU guarantee under InvestEU) and by multiplying the result by the average InvestEU provisioning rate of 40%.}

• As of the end of 2022, InvestEU had mobilised EUR 1 334.5 million worth of operations supporting digitalisation.
• The EUR 3.64 billion allocated to the ‘Innovation and digitalisation guarantee’ financial product of the SMEs window will support innovation- and digitalisation-driven SMEs and small mid-caps. The EU guarantee will support, among other things, innovative business models, supply chain management, the acquisition of digital skills and support to service providers that enable and support companies in the digitalisation of value chains, as long as these service providers focus predominantly on the provision and adoption of digital products and services.
• Moreover, the joint SMEs window / research, innovation and digitalisation window equity product to be implemented by the EIF includes a sub-product that supports investments fostering the development of digital, cultural and creative industry solutions.

Budget performance – outcomes

• The performance of the InvestEU programme in 2022 must be measured against the fact that the InvestEU regulation was adopted with some delay in March 2021 and therefore guarantee agreements with implementing partners under the InvestEU Fund were only signed in 2022, some of which in the last quarter of 2022. Therefore, financing for investments supported by the EU guarantee has commenced, but the impact of supported investments and their concrete contribution to InvestEU objectives, as captured by the key performance indicators, will only be visible at a later stage.
• Implementing partners other than the EIB Group have been selected through a public call for expression of interest followed by negotiations of individual guarantee agreements. Opening up the InvestEU programme to other implementing partners than the EIB Group widens the geographical coverage of the InvestEU programme, expands the pipeline of projects seeking financing and diversifies the risk at both the portfolio and the programme levels.
• In 2022, the InvestEU Investment Committee met nine times and approved - under the EU compartment - the EU guarantee for 66 investment proposals (including framework operations) by the EIB and the EIF.
• As of the end of 2022, the InvestEU programme has enabled the EIB Group to approve EUR 17.4 billion investment operations (incl. framework operations), of which EUR 6.3 billion have already been signed. Financing provided by the EIB Group included investments in key policy areas of the InvestEU programme, notably under the sustainable infrastructure window, which supports financing for renewable energy investments. Those investments financed with InvestEU support directly contribute to the EU's policy objectives in the area of low-carbon energy, energy security and accelerating the green transition, thus helping to reach the policy goals stipulated in the REPowerEU plan.
• In addition to the climate-related results of the InvestEU programme, the implementing partners will also report on the estimated reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and energy savings. At the end of 2022, implementing partners estimated that the operations funded with the support of InvestEU will avoid 3.8 million tonnes of CO₂ emissions, while generating an estimated 200.6 million Kw/hour of energy savings⁽¹⁾.
• As part of the planned roll-out of InvestEU, a number of financial products established under InvestEU would allow specific support for investments in the digital transition. At the end of 2022, an estimated EUR 1.33 billion of investment had been mobilised to support digitalisation. Projects include network expansion to provide fibre connectivity, investments into funds targeting the digital economy or financing schemes to support medium-sized enterprises and small mid-caps to help with their digital and environmental changeover.
• Measures have been taken to accelerate the financing of investments by implementing partners. These include the ‘warehousing’ of eligible financing and investment operations signed by the EIB Group and other implementing partners before the signature of the guarantee agreement, along with the use of framework operations for projects that have similar characteristics.
• The Commission supports the implementation of InvestEU through a number of communication activities, in particular (i) press releases, memos and replies to journalists; (ii) social media posts and the dedicated InvestEU website (InvestEU.europa.eu), which is continuously updated and developed further; (iii) InvestEU ‘roadshow’ events organised virtually and/or physically in each Member State, in collaboration with the EIB Group. 23 of these roadshow events took place in 2022, others will follow in 2023 and these will also progressively cover the new implementing partners.
• Concerning the InvestEU Advisory Hub, the advisory agreement with the EIB was signed in March 2022. Advisory agreements with Cassa Depositi e Prestiti (CDP, Italy), Bpifrance and CDC were signed between July and November 2022. Additional agreements with CEB and EBRD were signed early 2023. In 2022, the InvestEU Advisory Hub dealt with more than 385 requests coming directly from the central entry point for advisory requests or sourced by the advisory partners themselves. 170 of them have already been turned into ongoing or completed advisory assignments.
• The InvestEU Portal website was launched on 21 April 2021. In 2022, 535 new projects were received, out of which 434 projects were published. By the end of 2022, the InvestEU portal had provided access to 1 503 investment opportunities and more than 100 projects had received financing after being published on the portal.
• The InvestEU Portal co-organised two events with the European Business Angels Network. In addition, four virtual e-pitching events were held in cooperation with EuroQuity (France) on subjects including climate change, digital solutions, female entrepreneurship and space. Communication efforts and promotional activities are ongoing to improve the visibility of the InvestEU Portal, such as the participation and co-organisation of matchmaking events and other campaigns.

^{(1) Implementing partners will report on the actual realised results over time, when the related projects are completed, and when the financing is repaid.}

Contribution to the sustainable development goals