The European Commission approved the first Important Project of Common European Interest under State aid rules in 2018. The ten projects approved since have involved almost 250 companies from 22 EU countries. Over €37 billion in public funds have been approved, for total investments estimated at over €100 billion, when private funds are accounted for. IPCEIs have been effective in tracing the path for a forward-looking industrial policy for the whole of the EU.
Objectives of the dialogue
The dialogue was an opportunity to assess IPCEIs together with companies and national authorities after seven years of implementation. The main goal was debating how the instrument can be made more accessible and have a bigger impact in terms of addressing important market failures; fostering research and development and the creation of major open-access infrastructure; and encouraging the companies that receive government subsidies to significantly co-finance the projects.
Special focus was placed on SMEs, which account for around 20% of participating companies on average, but have grown from the 7% in the first IPCEI approved in 2018 to the 64% in the one approved in 2024.
Themes discussed
Participants were invited to debate the three overarching themes that – together – are the core policy rationale of IPCEIs; the main reason why they were introduced and have attracted so much interest over the years. In question form:
- Have IPCEIs helped companies work on breakthrough innovation?
- Have they provided spillovers across the EU?
- Have they helped create or strengthen Europe-wide industrial ecosystems?
Outcome
On 30 June, EVP Ribera held her first Implementation Dialogue on Important Projects of Common European Interest, a State aid instrument designed to support large integrated projects in sectors and technologies of strategic importance for the EU. The in-person dialogue involved national implementing authorities and businesses representatives from large companies and SMEs. All participants had been directly involved in IPCEIs. It was an opportunity to collect feedback from Member States authorities and companies and learn what has worked and what requires further efforts.
Most participants recognised IPCEIs’ transformational potential for European industry and their capacity to i) attract research and development to Europe and promote EU-wide breakthrough innovation in key sectors; ii) foster public-private partnerships; and iii) boost Europe’s competitiveness. SMEs’ access to IPCEIs was a special focus of the debate. Participants took the opportunity to identify areas of improvement, the most recurrent of which were the synchronisation at the level of Member States to speed up the projects’ actual financing, the overall length of implementation processes, flexibility, and the need for a regulatory framework supporting innovations.
EVP Ribera took good note of the views and suggestions offered by stakeholders. She mentioned the measures the Commission already implemented to streamline IPCEI processes such as the Joint European Forum for IPCEI and the IPCEI Design Support Hub; and the Commission’s recent proposal to expand opportunities of EU co-financing of IPCEIs. In closing, she stressed her commitment to keep honing the instrument to streamline it and make it more agile and effective.
Format and programme
23 representatives of government authorities and companies from Spain and the rest of Europe with first-hand experience of IPCEI projects participated in an open discussion chaired by EVP Ribera. Every effort was made to achieve a balanced representation in terms of gender and company scale.
- 9:30-10:00Welcome coffee
- 10:00-12:00Implementation dialogue
- 12:00-12:30Reception
