Source: European Parliament
The Commission attaches utmost importance to ensuring that EU funding supports sustainable industrial development, job creation, and Europe’s strategic autonomy, whilst guaranteeing an effective use of the funds.
The specific project mentioned has been selected for funding under the Innovation Fund, which is financed through revenues from the European Union Emissions Trading System and supports innovative low-carbon technologies.
The Innovation Fund awards projects based on five award criteria. ‘Project maturity’ is an important one of them.
Here, the project’s technical, financial and operational feasibility is assessed. The project in question scored highly on this metric, as well as on the other award criteria, and was thus selected as part of the 2021 Innovation Fund’s call for proposals for large-scale projects. You are invited to consult the press release[1] and Innovation Fund project dashboard[2].
Payments from the Innovation Fund are provided subject to the project reaching pre-defined milestones. So far, no funding has been paid to the mentioned project.
The Innovation Fund aims to support high-risk, first-of-a-kind and very innovative projects, some of which may also fail. The Commission is closely monitoring the projects that the Innovation Fund supports and aims to be a partner to industry and project developers.
The Commission continually reflects on the effectiveness of project selection criteria, safeguards, and monitoring systems to minimise risks while ensuring that EU funding delivers its intended benefits.