Gentiloni: “For the green transition, we need to envision a common investment tool”

Brussels – The green transition is a good thing, but to indeed be a success story, it needs a sustainability-agenda-friendly spending policy made to fit investments: a solution to be developed from the ground up since the amount of resources is not marginal and the answer to the problem far from obvious. In Brussels, the head of the Directorate General for Economic Affairs (DG ECFIN), Maarten Verwey, acknowledges that “the challenges we face are enormous, while our budgetary spaces rather limited.” His invitation to the Brussels Economic Forum is to “be smart.” The Commissioner for the Economy, Paolo Gentiloni, has an idea: a new common European mechanism that traces the NextGenerationUE anti-pandemic instrument, the one that encompasses the Recovery Fund. 

“For me, it is clear that in the coming years we will need public spending on investments, first and foremost for the green transition,” Gentiloni stressed. “If we want to be serious, we should imagine a common instrument after NextGenerationEU,” expiring in 2026—suggestion and task left to the coming EU Commission and Parliament. The timetable does not allow us, even if we wanted to, to change course. Therefore, everything is postponed until after the European elections in early June. 

“The next political cycle should provide an answer to the huge amount of investment we need,” insists the Economy Commissioner, who claims what has been done so far. “We already have the largest investment program in the history of the EU, and I am proud of that,” he says, referring specifically to NextGenerationEU.

Gentiloni’s reminder is nothing new; if anything, it is, in his view, a proper repetition. A 620 billion annual investment is needed for the Green Deal and the RepowerEu program for energy independence in Europe: a significant figure for which private contribution will be crucial but for which private capital alone is likely to fall short.