For Philipp Lausberg, senior researcher at the European Policy Centre, the more say that EU governments have, the more complicated it will be to run the fund. “It would make things slower, and it would make things less effective,” he told POLITICO. “The Commission has a more coordinated approach than 27 member states.”
What if an EU government wants to back a project?
The current ECF proposal would allow EU countries to top up the funds. While it’s unclear how this money would be allocated, it’s safe to assume that governments won’t finance projects that don’t bring national benefits.
The catch is that bigger, richer countries — like Germany or France — have more budget firepower than smaller EU members. The challenge here would be to ensure that rules on state aid designed to preserve fairness in the EU’s single market are upheld.
About those rules on state aid …
There’s a menu of state aid frameworks that EU countries can choose from when notifying programs to the EU executive — each with its own specific objectives. The Clean Industrial Deal State Aid Framework, for example, seeks to make it easier for EU governments to support cleantech projects, as well as to help energy-intensive industries decarbonize.
Additional funding from EU countries could flow back to national projects through a so-called auctions-as-a-service mechanism. This would allow governments to piggyback on a larger European call or EU-managed auction to fund national competitive projects.
What about international projects?
The ECF proposal also foresees national top-ups to European funding for Important Projects of Common European Interest — a vehicle that allows EU governments to pool state aid for cross-border, cutting-edge projects.
