Budget Impact of Complementarity of ESI Funds and EFSI

By Euronews

Published on 14/02/2017 - 12:26

Will ESI Funds being used with EFSI, mean less money for European Programs that depend on it? Maybe not.

Maithreyi Seetharaman, Euronews:
How would you address critics who say that this is money from the EU budget that has already gone to EFSI – Are we going to see further reductions in the kind of projects that..the kind of sectors that get funded by Structural Funds..Universities for example.

Jyrki Katainen, European Commission Vice-President for Jobs, Growth, Investment and Competitiveness:
I think that fundamental research, Basic Research..is always and will always be financed through grants because we are talking about the salaries of the professors and teachers – So, I can imagine that in some particular cases Universities can apply financing as they have already done from EIB – meaning that they are raising loans for making infrastructure investments. This is the reality now already EIB has been financing tremendous amount of Universities and higher education like this. But the basic work done by professors, they are financed by normal budget financing…So..

Corina Cretu, European Commissioner for Regional Affairs:
…and any how research and innovation is one of our priority

Jyrki Katainen:
Yep..yes..

Corina Cretu, European Commissioner for Regional Affairs:
..and I think it is very important and as I said in the beginning we will invest with priority research and innovation, digital ..and we’ll slow down with infrastructure. We know that it is a need especially for Central and Eastern Europe because connection it is very important issue but also we should go hand in hand with for these regions hand in hand with innovation. And I am very proud we finance together and we work last on Extreme Light Infrastructure in Prague, Bucharest and Szeged will be one of the highest research centers in terms of Laser – So we have got a lot of examples where we show, research for us, because we are aware that this is the future and this is the backbone of every economy, Small and Medium sized enterprises and looking to the future. So, so as Jyrki said it will always be our priority.

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