Call for European City Facility Beneficiaries

The European City Facility (EUCF) aims to support municipalities and local authorities in developing Investment Concepts related to the implementation of actions identified in their climate and energy action plans. The ultimate objective of the EUCF is to build a substantial pipeline of sustainable energy investment projects across municipalities in Europe. 

The EUCF finances the development of an Investment Concept with a fixed grant of 60 000 EUR for each beneficiary.

The 6th call, closing on March 15, 2024, at 17.00 CET, will fund 75 beneficaries. 

Eligibility

The EUCF is open to all municipalities/local authorities, their groupings, and local public entities aggregating municipalities/local authorities from the 27 EU Member States, Iceland and Ukraine. Applicants are required to have a climate and/or energy plan. This includes SECAPs (Sustainable Energy and Climate Action Plans), developed within the Covenant of Mayors initiative, or other climate and/or energy plans with mitigation targets.

Moreover, applicants have to demonstrate political commitment to the development of the Investment Concept through a letter of support, signed by the Mayor or other relevant political representative. The applicant must commit to the EUCF monitoring period of two years.

A beneficiary of previous calls of European City Facility cannot be funded again. 

Take the quick eligibility check here and start your application.

 

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Background of the EUCF Call

Investment Support in EUCF

What can be financed

The EUCF finances activities, such as (technical) feasibility studies, market analyses, stakeholder analyses, legal, economic and financial analyses, risk analyses, etc., that are required to develop the investment concept. These activities can be delivered by in-house staff or subcontracted external experts.

The grant cannot directly finance the actual investments, but it covers costs to mobilise resources and access services to develop an investment concept.

Applications are evaluated based on 4 evaluation criteria:

  1. Ambition of the proposed investment concept

  2. Governance structure for the development of the investment concept

  3. Stakeholders engagement strategy

  4. Coherence and plausibility

Please find the full details of the evaluation process in the Guidelines for applicants.

Advantages of joint applications

In line with the EUCF objectives, local authorities/municipalities are strongly encouraged to join forces and resources and submit joint applications, to increase the ambition of the application and increase the chances of success. 

Do you want to apply as a grouping? Check our guidelines and see what you should consider when applying as a grouping.

Local public entities aggregating municipalities/local authorities are also eligible. A non-exhaustive list of potential eligible applicants included in this category can also be found in the EUCF guidelines for applicants.
 

Timeline

The sixth EUCF call opened on 15 January 2024. The deadline for submitting your application is on 15 march 2024, 17:00 (Brussels time).

Budget

This 6th call will support the development of 75 investment concepts, with a total budget of 4.5 M EUR allocated to the three regions according to the table below:

Region

Countries

Budget available for the 6th call (in M EUR)

Number of Investment Concepts financed

Central and Eastern Europe

 (CEE)

Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia Ukraine.

1.80

30

Nordic countries & Western Europe

(NC&WE)

Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Sweden.

1.14

19

Southern Europe

(SE)

Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Malta, Portugal, Spain.

1.56

26

Total available for this call

4.5 M EUR

75

Regional Approach

The EUCF calls are organised in parallel for three geographic regions including all eligible countries (EU 27 Member States, Iceland and Ukraine) as displayed in the map below: 

Expected output

The expected output is the developed investment concept, i.e. a document providing investors and financial institutions with necessary information to assess an investment project. 

Evaluation Process

The evaluation of the EUCF applications is conducted after the close of each call for applications by a dedicated evaluation team. Each application is evaluated individually by at least two evaluators.  

At the document check, evaluators verify if all supporting documents have been submitted and contain the required content. In case of incomplete documents, the application is rejected, and the applicant receives an email notification from the EUCF website user zone. Applications are then evaluated based on four evaluation criteria: (1.) Ambition of the proposed investment project, (2.) Governance structure, (3.) Stakeholder engagement strategy, (4.) Coherence and plausibility.

At the end of the evaluation process, each applicant is informed about the final result with corresponding feedback through a feedback report. The best scored applications are selected to receive EUCF support. Unsuccessful applications can seek support from the EUCF Helpdesk and are able to participate again in the next call for applications. 

Download the Call Document here.

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Application Guidance

Evaluation of applications