Commission proposes the Strategic Technologies for Europe Platform (‘STEP’). The STEP will reinforce and leverage existing EU instruments to quickly deploy financial support to the benefit of business investments. The STEP will also allow directing existing funding towards technology fields that are crucial for Europe’s leadership, thus contributing to a level playing field for investments throughout the Single Market.
The STEP will build on existing programmes such as InvestEU, Innovation Fund, Horizon Europe, EU4Health, Digital Europe Programme, European Defence Fund, Recovery and Resilience Facility, and cohesion policy funds.
To boost the investment capacity dedicated specifically to promoting STEP objectives, the Commission further proposes to allocate additional €10 billion to targeted programmes:
- €3 billion for InvestEU, resulting in €75 billion of investments given the 40% provisioning rate and an average multiplier of 10;
- €0.5 billion to Horizon Europe, complemented with €2.13 billion of redeployment and use of decommitted amounts, resulting in €13 billion of investments with an average multiplier of 5;
- €5 billion to the Innovation Fund, resulting in €20 billion of investments given the experience to date under the Innovation Fund;
- €1.5 billion to the European Defence Fund, which could result in up to €2 billion of investments.