EU City Facility: Financial support and services to cities’ sustainable energy projects

We are glad to coordinate the European City Facility (EUCF), a new EU-funded project which will provide financial support and services to cities and municipalities – or their groupings – across the EU.

The mission of the EUCF is to build a substantial pipeline of sustainable energy investment projects across cities in the EU, by providing targeted financial, technical, legal and capacity-building support. Objectives are to overcome critical barriers, develop credible investment packages and mobilise finance.

The specific objectives of the EUCF are:

• to provide hands-on, locally-rooted technical and financial expertise to cities to deliver at least 225 credible and scalable investment concepts, which will trigger more than €320 millions of public and private investment.
• to build the capacity of at least 450 public authority staff members to develop substantial project pipelines and provide them with tools, networking and knowledge transfer opportunities which will facilitate and accelerate the implementation of the investment concepts, including via innovative financing mechanisms and project aggregation.
• to facilitate access, especially for small and medium-sized municipalities, to private finance, EU funding streams and similar facilities (e.g. the European Structural and Investment Funds, the H2020 Project Development Assistance, and EIB-ELENA) and advisory services such as the European Investment Bank’s Advisory Hub to implement and amplify the expected investments.

All cities and municipalities or their groupings will be soon informed about this new support scheme and on how to apply.