{"id":285640,"date":"2025-11-27T06:16:12","date_gmt":"2025-11-27T06:16:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/285640\/"},"modified":"2025-11-27T06:16:12","modified_gmt":"2025-11-27T06:16:12","slug":"poorer-eu-countries-push-paris-berlin-for-slice-of-e234bn-industry-fund","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/285640\/","title":{"rendered":"Poorer EU countries push Paris, Berlin for slice of \u20ac234bn industry fund"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Poorer EU countries want their small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and regions to get a fair share of the EU\u2019s \u20ac234 billion fund to revamp the bloc\u2019s lagging investments, according to a document seen by Euractiv.<\/p>\n<p>Governments are clashing over the design of the European Competitiveness Fund (ECF), a centrepiece of the EU\u2019s \u20ac2 trillion long-term budget. The proposed fund is designed to allocate funding based on the merit of funding proposals.<\/p>\n<p>Poland and Italy are among a group of at least nine countries pushing for guarantees that poorer regions and smaller companies get a slice of the new cash pot, irrespective of the strength of their proposals. Berlin and Paris staunchly defend a \u201cmerit-based\u201d design, which would mainly benefit their own large, well-resourced companies.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMalta strongly advocates for the allocation of at least 30% of the ECF, to be dedicated exclusively to SMEs,\u201d reads the document seen by Euractiv, which compiles national comments on the Fund\u2019s design.<\/p>\n<p>In the comments, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia, and Greece call for ring-fenced support for SMEs, poorer regions, or both. Athens even floated a minimum SME quota of 50%.<\/p>\n<p>Italy, Portugal, and Czechia called for a similar \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.euractiv.com\/news\/france-germany-on-defensive-over-industrial-fund-access-for-smaller-eu-states\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">balancing<\/a>\u201d mechanism to stop the fund from de facto benefiting the richest EU economies.<\/p>\n<p>Germany, meanwhile, said that \u201cthe text should be further specified towards merit-based award procedures and made more binding.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Paris \u201cwants the principles of excellence, European preference, and strengthening our strategic autonomy to remain the sole guiding principles for the actions of this fund,\u201d France said.\u00a0 Both countries are backed by comments from Sweden, Finland, the Netherlands, and Belgium.<\/p>\n<p>France, Germany on defensive over industrial fund access for smaller EU states<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-news-link__text\">\n\t\t\t\t\tThe EU\u2019s richest countries are rebuffing a demand from the bloc\u2019s smaller members to carve\u2026\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-news-link__read-time\">\n\t\t\t\t\t2 minutes\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"800\" height=\"534\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/24588ab1-c087-4476-be61-70cd77ed7833-800x534.jpeg\" class=\"c-news-link__img\" alt=\"France, Germany on defensive over industrial fund access for smaller EU states\"\/>\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>The demands from poorer EU countries come as they are already being asked to absorb <a href=\"https:\/\/www.euractiv.com\/section\/economy-jobs\/news\/the-farmer-subsidy-cut-is-almost-twice-what-the-commission-says\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">sizeable<\/a> cuts to farm and regional subsidies in the Commission\u2019s \u20ac2 trillion budget proposal, and are looking for compensation in other parts of the budget.<\/p>\n<p>German ambassador to the EU, Thomas Ossowski, has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.euractiv.com\/news\/germany-to-block-eu-budget-if-commissions-reform-plan-falters\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">threatened<\/a> to further cut those subsidies if the merit-based design of the competitiveness fund is called into question.<\/p>\n<p>(mm)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Poorer EU countries want their small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and regions to get a fair share of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":285641,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[84,1294,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-285640","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-economy","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285640","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=285640"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285640\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/285641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=285640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=285640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=285640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}