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Due to lack of resources for a proper national “green transition“ and climate mitigation, several EU member states (i.e. Bulgaria, Croatia, Czechia, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia) received recently sufficient support from the EU investment facilities. The amounts disbursed in June 2023 are bringing the total disbursements on “green transition” from the Modernisation Fund to around €7.5 billion. In this way the EU governance financial mechanism supports “green business”.
The EU-wide “modernisation fund” since the beginning of 2021 supports investments into states and companies dealing with generation and use of energy from renewable sources, other energy efficiency initiatives, creating energy storage facilities and adapting energy networks, i.e. including district heating, pipelines and grids, as well as corporate efforts within “just transition” in carbon-dependent regions.
This fund is complementing other European investment instruments, such as cohesion policy and the Just Transition Fund; in common efforts, these funds help to mobilise significant resources, which can help beneficiary EU states support investments in line with the REPowerEU Plan and the ”Fit-for-55” package. These funds are operating under the responsibility of its beneficiary countries in close cooperation with the European Commission and the European Investment Bank, EIB.
Additional investments are mainly benefiting ten eligible member states, including: Romania and Czechia, both with €1.1 billion, Bulgaria – €197 million, Poland – €47 million, Croatia – €88 million, Latvia – €5 million and Lithuania – €1 million. The amounts disbursed in June 2023 would bring total disbursements from the Modernisation Fund effective from January 2021 to around €7.5 billion. The projects supported by these investment mainly focus on renewable electricity generation, as well as on modernisation of energy networks and on energy efficiency: i.e. all these sectors represent new trends in “green business”.
More on “Delivering the European green deal” in: https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/priorities-2019-2024/european-green-deal/delivering-european-green-deal_en
Important to mention that in May 2023, the revised EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) entered into force and became an integral part of the EU-wide sustainability’s legislation: in this way the strengthened EU ETS would increase the scope of the modernisation fund, specifically providing financial support already during 2024 to some additional beneficiary member states, i.e. Portugal, Greece and Slovenia.
On Modernisation Fund: https://modernisationfund.eu/how-it-works/
Mentioned EIB’s investments – together with the EU modernisation fund – represent additional efforts in the so-called standard EIB financing and technical assistance operations to avoid any potential conflict of interest in carrying out the activities mandated in accordance with the ETS Directive and the Commission Implementing Regulation adopted in July 2020.
It is well worth underlining some examples of “green business” projects in the eligible member states which have already received funding; they were oriented towards the following developmental directions:
= modernisation of the electricity distribution grid in Bulgaria to accelerate the electrification of transport, storage deployment, as well as decarbonisation and decentralization of energy consumption and production;
= deploying photovoltaic and energy storage capacity for public water service providers in Croatia;
= improving energy efficiency and energy savings in new buildings for the public sector through the ENERGov Program in Czechia;
= introduction of electric vehicles and corresponding charging infrastructure in Latvia;
= renovation of multi-apartment buildings in Lithuania;
= supporting cogeneration for district heating in Poland;
= new renewable electricity production capacities, district heating, as well as gas infrastructure to replace coal-powered energy in Romania.
General reference to Commission’s press release in: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/da/ip_23_3126