Auditing Court: Commissioner Katainen’s favorite project was found in Kupru

Ex-Prime Minister, who worked as EU Commissioner in Juncker Cabinet in 2014–2019 Jyrki Katainen According to YLE’s interview (2019), he considered the erection of the ESIR fund, the European Strategic Investment Fund, as his greatest achievement of his commissioner career.

Katainen said in 2019 that the fund had been investing in four years for EUR 400 billion.

However, the situation was not quite optimistic, as a report by the European Auditing Court on Wednesday, two years later, that is, by the time limit of 2022, the amount of additional investments made, EUR 503 billion, was reported EUR 131 billion, or 26 % too high. As a result, the fund did not reach EUR 400 billion even by the final deadline.

According to the inspectors, reporting the number of additional investments was too high due, among other things, in which the Commission and the European Investment Bank (EIP) applied the method: the multiplier effect calculated by the Commission and EIP was partly based on financing, which had not yet been paid to final supporters.

In addition, the Commission and EIP mistakenly considered the ESIR Fund’s earnings that had been made by other EU tools.

The Court of Auditors points out that the Commission also did not assess afterwards whether the ESIir fund made an investment that would not otherwise have not been made.

Promoted the repair of an investment gap

In the end, the ESIR fund achieved only three quarters of its target by the end of 2022 to get a $ 500 billion additional investment in the real economy.

Nonetheless, the Court states in its report that ESIR significantly helped to correct the EU investment gap, which was born after the 2007-2008 financial crisis.

“The ESIR Fund has significantly promoted the correction of the EU investment gap and supported many different measures from micro-financing to large infrastructure investments, even though it did not fully achieve the number of investments,” said the European Court of Auditorial Court, responsible for the inspection Lefteris Christoforou.