InvestEU

Europe Direct North Aegean is one of the three European Information Centers across Greece (out of a total of 18), commissioned by the European Commission, to promote the InvestEU in the North Aegean Islands.

Our goal is to inform and raise awareness amongst authorized official bodies (national, public and private authorities) as well as citizens about European funding opportunities for development actions, training and development opportunities in a European region. In the context of the public awareness campaigns, workshops, laboratories, visits to projects that indicate the development of the North Aegean region with the financial support of the European Union and more specifically the European Structural Funds as well as radio or television broadcasts, are organized.

The top priority of the European Commission is to bring Europe back on track and to increase jobs without creating new debt.

The Investment Plan for Europe has three objectives: eliminating barriers to investment, visibility and technical support for investment projects and more efficient use of financial resources. It therefore consists of three pillars

• The European Strategic Investment Fund (ETSF) with an initial capital of 21 billion, which provides a guarantee, thus enabling the European Investment Bank to invest in more, sometimes, higher-risk projects and to invest more quickly than without the guarantee.

• The European Investment Advisory Center and the European Investment Portal, providing technical assistance and increasing the visibility of investment opportunities.

• Improving the business environment by removing regulatory barriers to investment at both national and EU level.

Expansion of the Juncker Investment Plan

Expanding the Juncker Investment Plan by 2020 and raising the investment target by 315 billion euro to at least 500 billion euro was voted in favor by the plenary of European Parliament in Strasbourg.

Specifically, the ETSC Regulation 2.0 will come into force on 1st of January 2018 and in its new form will have significant improvements, such as increased transparency, a greater proportion of sustainable projects, greater focus on small projects and more technical support at local level.

It is worth noting that Greece is in the three countries that have benefited most from the Juncker package

For more information on the European Investment Plan https://europa.eu/investeu/home_en

“The Investment Plan works and refutes pessimists. The ERC creates jobs and mobilizes investments. That’s why we recommend that it should continue to operate after 2018. Let’s have ambitious targets for restarting investments in Europe.”

Jean-Claude Juncker