Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF): 130 billion EUR
Above all, the Covid-19 pandemic has shown the importance of resilient and very high broadband communications. 5G and digital applications are welcome, from healthcare to remote education, media, telework, retail and transport as everything that could has become virtual. The Covid-19 showed how connectivity is crucial in our lives and how coverage is key, including in non-urban areas.
Remote healthcare is one of the major use cases for 5G. In that sense, the coronavirus is very timely. It requires real-time UHD/VR/AR videos enabled by 5G through low latency, very high speeds and very high capacity. Monitoring, surveillance, detection and prevention of Covid-19 can be successful using cellular networks and IoT. In the media field, 5G very high data rates and low latencies can allow 4K or 8K HD live streaming or even AR/VR in affected areas. In the education field, with the remote classes in many countries, 5G enables high quality videos and VR/AR immersive classes. China Mobile is heavily involved solutions for remote learning. 5G is helpful in collecting real-time information on vehicles, monitoring connected vehicles. It is also crucial when transporting strongly affected patients. In the retail field, we all experienced the covid-19 consequences of panic buying and of supply chain disruption. Increased 5G, IoT, and AI would be helpful to avoid shortage of food in some areas.
That is why the Commission and Member States have identified 5G as a key area for investment for the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF). In July 2020, Member States agreed on a recovery package to mitigate the effect of the crisis. The package is called NextGenerationEU (NGEU). It comprises 750 billion EUR in loans and grants to the EU Members. The NGEU will invest 672.5 billion EUR to the RRF of which 360 billion EUR will be loans and 312.5 billion EUR will be grants. 20% of the total budget (130 billion EUR) should be devoted to digital. Horizon Europe will get an additional 5 billion EUR. RRF will complement Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) and Digital Europe Programme strategic and R&D investments. In addition, many countries identified 5G as a key lever for recovery after the pandemic. In France, 5G is part of the “Plan de Relance” as a strategic field for the country. In Germany, 5G is seen as a key tool to speed up mobile coverage and reduce white spots.
Structural and investment Funds (ESIF): 6 billion EUR for digital networks
European Regional Fund (EFRD)
European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD)
Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) – Telecom Strand
- Broadband Fund (CEBF):
expected leverage of 1-1.7 billion EUR for broadband deployment in underserved areas
Investments between 1 million and 30 million EUR for projects representing total costs of up to 150 million EUR
Operational launch in 2018
- WiFi4EU Initiative
- 120 million EUR for equipment
European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI)
- Initiative launched to help overcome the current investment gap in the EU by mobilising private financing for strategic investments
- Up to now over 2.2 billion for NGA projects