– Madam President, EFSI was primarily designed to help us bridge the investment gap of Europe, but it has not worked as expected. Being a supply side instrument, we understand that it’s difficult to create its own demand, especially in the structure and innovation window because it was not included in incentives like that for the creation of this demand and the facts are clear: very few of the projects were additional; the diverse risk premium—the pricing of the programme caused more disincentives than incentives to apply for it; and lack of institutional framework to enable blending with other EU financial resources made it more difficult for the Member States that need it more.

Now we are looking forward to address and fix this problem with the trialogues of EFSI 2, but the ambitious elements that could incentivise the creation of demand are still not enough: 91% of VS 9, 15 Member States VS 13. It doesn’t seem that it will change dramatically. I do believe that there is urgent need for economic relevance in the EU and EFSIs are potentially headed toward the correct direction. But its structure as designed does not address the realities and the lesson is that for EFSI 1 supply side mechanisms with weak demand will not produce significant results.

Congratulations to Mr Bullmann and Mr Fernandes for the efforts made to change this Direction.