Copyright

Philipp Heimberger and Andreas Lichtenberger

Published On

2023-12-12

Page Range

pp. 201–216

Language

  • English

Print Length

16 pages

12. Options for a Permanent EU Sovereign Fund

Meeting the Climate-Investment Challenge and Promoting Macroeconomic Stability

Chapter of: Financing Investment in Times of High Public Debt: 2023 European Public Investment Outlook(pp. 201–216)
This chapter argues that a new, permanent EU fiscal capacity can contribute to meeting the green-transition challenges and providing countercyclical macroeconomic stabilisation. While the Recovery and Resilience Fund (RRF) is not large enough to address the current challenges, its introduction was an essential step forward in providing an operational blueprint for a permanent EU investment fund. The reform of EU fiscal rules is set to provide insufficient scope for the additional public climate investment required to meet the climate targets. Furthermore, the EU sovereignty fund proposed by the European Commission in the form of the Strategic Technologies for Europe Platform (STEP) adds little new money, focuses on green-tech subsidies instead of public investment, and falls short of providing a realistic vision of meeting public investment

Contributors

Phillip Heimberger

(author)
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9874-7345

Phillip Heimberger is Economist at the Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies (WIIW), where he leads the macro research group. He holds a PhD in economics from the Vienna University of Economics and Business. His main research interests are in macroeconomics, public finance, and international economics. His work focuses on the macroeconomic implications of fiscal policy and fiscal rules, the political economy of public debt, and the socio-economic impacts of economic globalisation.

Andreas Lichtenberger

(author)
PhD Student at New School
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7681-4914

Andreas Lichtenberger is Economist at the WIIW and a doctoral student at The New School in New York. He is interested in macroeconomic and fiscal policy analysis, ecological economics, inequality, and issues of economic development. In the past he worked as research and teaching assistant at The New School and Barnard College / Columbia University and gained professional experience at The World Bank, the Austrian Financial Market Authority (FMA), and in a development project in Ecuador.