the EU currently invests €534bn annually in the energy, buildings, transport and cleantech manufacturing sectors. To reach the €878bn required to meet the EU’s 2030 objectives, an additional €344bn are needed each year.

In addition, the European Commission estimates that about €70bn per year is needed in climate adaptation.

In this context, the proposed €2tr EU budget (2028 – 2034) will be at the centre of attention. With limited fiscal space in many Member States, combined with a growing number of challenges to tackle, a lot of debate will focus on the overall size of the EU budget, where to find new revenue streams for the EU, and the headline priorities.

The Institute for Climate Economics (I4CE) sees the European Competitiveness Fund (ECF) as the EU’s best bet at financing its clean industrial ambitions and allied to this will be a need to boost the mobilisation of private capital.

The organisation notes that the cleantech sector struggles to secure long-term bank loans for scale-ups. The barrier is less of a shortage of capital than a shortage of bankable projects. Helping more projects reach bankability faster will require targeted early-stage public derisking tools, stronger equity support, and local ecosystem clusters.

All of which is fine, but how to encourage private capital to stick to these projects?

I4CE’s answer is a revised Governance of the Energy Union regulation which could present an opportunity to reinforce clean transition implementation measures. Turning the current National Energy and Climate Plans into investment plans could deliver on investors’ demand for clear and predictable national investment strategies in the medium term, increasing resilience in the face of future energy crises.

Along with the EU’s Integrated Framework for Climate Resilience and Risk Assessment and recent EU Electrification Action Plan, the political agenda this autumn might, I4CE say, provide key opportunities for policy makers to develop structural responses.

At the same time, a record $242bn of European green-aligned bonds were issued in the first half of 2026, according to the Climate Bonds Initiative, and on track to beat the previous full-year record of $385bn set in 2024 when nearly a third of the global total $673bn was European.

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