This was the key message that Milena Angelova, Executive Vice President of CEEP, presented at the Macroeconomic Dialogue meeting of the European Social Partners with EU economic policy makers today in Brussels.

Ms Angelova stated: “Europe is falling behind in infrastructures due to cuts in public budgets but also due to the lack of a clear European industrial, transport and energy policy line. If investments in our network industries are not increased we will lose out on competitiveness vis-à-vis other regions both in terms of lower increases in productivity and in employment creation”.

In her intervention Milena Angelova also underlined that the European Union should be more audacious in pushing forward the initiatives to compensate the reduction in public investment due to the austerity measures by relying more on other financing instruments.

Ms Angelova highlighted in this respect that project bonds have a clear potential in bridging the gap between EU 2020 ambitions and budgetary realities in financing large infrastructure projects.

As a final remark, Ms Angelova emphasised that the current negotiation on the EU’s Multi- Annual Financial Framework is of great importance. “For CEEP it is essential that care is taken to ensure that the budget lines on the Connecting Europe Facility and the cohesion policies for the programming period 2014-2020 are preserved”.

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For further information, please contact:

Priya Klinkenberg- tel. +32 (0) 2 229 21 40

CEEP gathers enterprises and organisations from across Europe, both public and private, at national, regional and local level, which are public employers or providers of services of general interest. CEEP members contribute to more than 26% of EU GDP and employ 30% of the EU workforce; CEEP is one of the three general corss-industry European Social Partners.