Today, the European Association of Innovation Consultants is releasing its first collective report “A Guide to Next Generation EU for industry to better understand and seize its opportunities.”
The pandemic caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus has led to an unprecedented health and economic crisis in our society. Companies of all sizes and entire sectors have been impacted by the pandemic. To overcome this crisis, strengthen and transform our economy, making it greener, more digital and more resilient, creating new opportunities and more jobs, the Commission has launched a temporary instrument, called “Next Generation EU,” which raises the European Union’s budget to €2.018 trillion in current prices, the largest economic stimulus ever funded by the EU.The EAIC is aware of the complexity involved in the implementation of these funds in terms of governance, type of investments, reforms and budgets. Alex Alvarez, board member of EAIC and coordinator of the report said “for this reason, we have created this guide to help the Commission inform industry to know how these stimulus measures will be deployed in Member States, as well as the existing synergies among them (priorities, instruments and countries). We hope this guide will ease the implementation of the funds and, therefore, the achievement of the objectives set by the European Union.”
EAIC President, Pekka Koponen added: “Next Generation EU is the biggest innovation funding opportunity for European Industry in EU history. Its potential to boost green and digital transition of the continent is unforeseen. However, it is not easy to get. Funding is distributed through hundreds of regional, national and EU-instruments in all EU languages. Domestic partner is often needed, while many times there are no competitive domestic suppliers available.
The market is showing signs of overheating in many industries already now when distribution of funding only begins. Therefore, finding committed partners, becomes even more important. Managing resulting projects requires specific skills as well. For all these issues competitive advice is needed. This is why we made this guide.”
The guide currently covers 21 countries, EAIC intends to update this guide regularly and incorporate new sections to facilitate the identification of opportunities for industry.
Some Facts on Next Generation EU
- To date 25 Recovery and Resilience Plans have been officially submitted to the European Commission. The 2 Countries that still should submit their Recovery Plans are Bulgaria and the Netherlands. The government for the Netherlands plans to submit the Plan in the second round, before the 30 April 2022 deadline.
- The European Commission has so far raised €45 billion under Next Generation EU. By the end of 2021, the Commission expects to raise some €80 billion in bonds, to be complemented by short-term EU-Bills, as per the funding plan published in June 2021.
- The largest allocation for the Climate target of the analysed plans can be found in Luxembourg (61%) followed by Denmark (59%), Finland (51%) and France (50%).
- The largest allocation for the Digital target on the analysed plans can be found in Germany (52%) followed by the Czech Republic (42.4%), Italy (40%), Poland (37.7%), Ireland (32.2%), Luxembourg (32%) and Spain (29.58%).