The ERDF and the Cohesion Fund can, within their respective scope of support, already provide support for investments that contribute to the objectives of the Strategic Technologies for Europe Platform (STEP) established by Regulation (EU) 2024/795 of the European Parliament and of the Council, which aims to strengthen Europe’s technological leadership. In order to provide further incentives for investments from the ERDF and the Cohesion Fund in those critical fields, the limitation for the overall contribution of the ERDF and the Cohesion Fund to those priorities should be removed and the possibility for Member States to receive a higher pre-financing for related programme amendments should be extended. The priorities which support investments contributing to STEP objectives under a request for a programme amendment that was submitted to the Commission by 31 March 2025 are to receive the exceptional one-off pre-financing applicable at the time of the submission of that request.
Furthermore, the possibilities for the financing of productive investments contributing to STEP objectives in enterprises other than SMEs should apply to all Member States and regions with a GDP per capita below the EU-27 average, while preserving a focus on SMEs. Such investments should also be possible in regions where they facilitate industrial adjustment linked to the digital transition, including digital capacities in cloud computing, AI and supercomputing, and the decarbonisation and circularity of production processes and products, such as in the automotive industry or energy intensive industries. In addition, the possibility provided for investments contributing to STEP objectives to finance productive investments in enterprises other than SMEs from the Just Transition Fund (JTF) established by Regulation (EU) 2021/1056 of the European Parliament and of the Council should be extended to all investments, while preserving a focus on SMEs, where such investments are necessary for, inter alia, the implementation of the just transition plan and for job creation.
Text as published in the Official Journal, reproduced verbatim (including any typographical quirks of the source). For the authentic version, see EUR-Lex.
