EU investment plan may be hard to realize

Before he officially took office, the European Commission's new President Jean-Claude Juncker announced his intention to create jobs and inject new life into the stagnant European economy by injecting an additional 300 billion euros ($374.25 billion) over three years, beginning 2015.

Nearly one month into his new job, and he has unveiled some details of his plan. The investment budget for the three years has now been increased to 315 billion euros.

At first glance, such a big sum may seem a boon for Europeans eagerly looking for signs of new jobs being created. But on carefully reading the plan, many are likely to feel disappointed, not least because of the policy difficulties that need to be overcome to realize it.

The 315 billion euros is not fiscal or public investment. The European Commission has merely earmarked 21 billion euros of public money for the plan, 16 billion euros from the EU budget and 5 billion euros from the European Investment Bank.

Instead, Juncker is trying to act as a magician pulling a money tree out of his hat by leveraging private investment to generate the remaining amount.

Although a detailed project list is still in the pipeline, Juncker says additional investment will target infrastructure, notably broadband and energy networks, as well as transport infrastructure in industrial centers. It will also focus on education, research and innovation; and renewable energy and energy efficiency through viable projects with a real added value for the European social market economy.

All well and good - if it happens.

According to the European Investment Bank, investment now in Europe is 15 percent lower than in 2007 because investors are shy of taking actions and risks. It argues that lack of investment is not due to a lack of capital. Europe has ample liquidity, which is available both in financial institutions and in corporations, but this money is not reaching the real economy.

While the EIB is on track to meet its commitment as part of the EU's Compact on Growth and Jobs, some member governments do not favor an increase in its lending as they want to ensure its AAA credit rating.

And even if the money does start flowing as promised, it will only make a small inroad into what is being called the eurozone's "investment gap", the amount that was expected to be invested if the financial crisis hadn't occurred and it had continued to increase at pre-crisis rates.

For Juncker the priority is not to give "a big sum" to boost public confidence. His most urgent task is to balance the welfare of workers while offering incentives to businesses to invest.

This will be a difficult balancing act. Belgians took to the streets in November as the new prime minister was planning to reduce unemployment benefits. They plan more such actions this month.

While inflation in eurozone, which is expected to be 0.3 percent in November, is adding to Juncker's policy difficulties, because the European Central Bank cannot cut interests rate further as they have already hit bottom. This means he cannot offer a further incentive to attract businesses to borrow by cutting interests rates as capital is already cheap.

Juncker also has to bear in mind the initial purpose of this plan, which is to stimulate growth and create jobs. While Juncker is yet to finalize the project list, he should be paying special attention to the jobless rate in different countries.

He needs to have a very clear picture of where are the 24 million jobless men and women in the 28 EU countries.

For example, the increased investment should target those countries with high jobless rate such as Greece and Spain, instead of being channeled to Germany and Austria.

Obviously, it is going to be hard for Juncker to juggle everyone's interests amid the complex politics of the EU.

The author is China Daily's chief correspondent in Brussels. fujing@chinadaily.com.cn