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(14) Low infrastructure investment rates in the Union during the financial crisis and again during the COVID-19 crisis have undermined the Union’s ability to boost sustainable growth, its efforts towards climate neutrality, its competitiveness and convergence and the creation of jobs. This also creates the risk of consolidating imbalances and divergences and inequalities within and between Member States, impacting on long-term development at Union, national or regional level. Sizeable investments in Union infrastructure, in particular with regard to interconnection and energy efficiency and to creating a Single European Transport Area, are essential to meeting the Union’s sustainability targets, including the Union’s commitments towards the SDGs, and the 2030 energy and climate targets. Accordingly, support from the InvestEU Fund should target investments in transport, energy, including energy efficiency and renewable energy sources and other safe and sustainable low-emission energy sources, environmental infrastructure, infrastructure related to climate action, maritime infrastructure and digital infrastructure, including fast and ultra-fast broadband connectivity throughout the Union, to accelerate the digital transformation of the Union economy. The InvestEU Programme should prioritise areas that are under-invested, and in which additional investment is required. To maximise the impact and added value of Union financing support, it is appropriate to promote a streamlined investment process that enables visibility of the project pipeline and maximises synergies across relevant Union programmes in areas such as transport, energy and digitisation. Bearing in mind threats to safety and security, investment projects receiving Union support should include measures for infrastructure resilience, including infrastructure maintenance and safety, and should take into account principles for the protection of citizens in public spaces. This should be complementary to the efforts made by other Union funds that provide support for security components of investments in public spaces, transport, energy and other critical infrastructure, such as the European Regional Development Fund.

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Source: EUR-Lex (Cellar) · retrieved 2026-10-30 · Text as adopted (Official Journal); later amendments are not incorporated in this text.