Important Projects of Common European Interest (IPCEIs) as a New Form of Differentiation

Increasingly popular in recent years, projects of common European interest (PIIEC) support a more active European industrial policy. However, PIIECs can cause tensions with European Union (EU) competition policy and thus with the functioning of the single market. In this contribution, our aim is to show that these tensions are largely linked to the very nature of PIIECs, which results in budgetary differentiation and a relatively informal and vague governance framework. The main challenges to ensuring a level playing field within the single market are the differences in financial, technical and administrative capacities between Member States and their companies, as well as the shortcomings in the provisions governing the creation, implementation and evaluation of PIIECs. Based on the analysis of the public consultation organised by the European Commission on the recent proposal for a targeted revision of the IPEC Communication, as well as on all the national recovery and resilience plans approved to date, we have found that the actions taken so far are insufficient to address the challenges identified. To alleviate some of the tensions between EU industrial policy and competition policy, we recommend financing EIPs through European funds rather than national plans and implementing a more inclusive and coherent governance framework.