Publications
& Policy

The letter calls on EU leaders to take bold EU actions to overcome the EU's competitiveness challenges, ahead of the 19-20 March EU Council. It has been by co-signed by more than 110 venture capital, private equity and infrastructure firms.  

In this response to a European Commission consultation, Invest Europe, alonsgide most national VC and PE associations, makes the case for a revised architecture of the AIFMD and EuVECA marketing and management passports, alleviating rules for long-term equity managers and making it easier for them to market and manage funds cross-border.

The leaked draft of the 28th regime (EU Inc.) reflects the right objective, but its current scope and ambition risk limiting its effectiveness. Narrow definitions of innovation and growth, rigid thresholds, and inconsistencies with EU frameworks could exclude many of the companies it is meant to support. Addressing these shortcomings will be essential to ensure the regime drives uptake, reduces fragmentation, and delivers meaningful benefits for companies and investors.

With the SME definition currently under revision, the EU has a key opportunity to address a framework that misclassifies PE- and VC-backed companies as part of larger corporate groups, stripping otherwise eligible firms of SME status - and related incentives - solely due to their ownership structure. Recognising the independence of private capital-backed companies would incentivise SMEs to access private capital while reinforcing a more attractive investment environment, ultimately strengthening Europe’s innovation capacity and addressing its scaleup gap.

The Digital Omnibus proposals on DORA, such as the single EU incident‑reporting entry point, are a positive and pragmatic step towards a more coherent, efficient and proportionate digital resilience framework in the EU.

However, broader adjustments are still needed to ensure that DORA is workable for private capital managers and does not undermine the EU’s ambition to boost private investment, innovation and growth. In particular, DORA must better recognise the specific characteristics of long‑term, closed‑ended equity funds and avoid imposing on them ICT regimes designed for very different business models.

In this paper, prepared in response to a European Commission public consultation, we set out our views on the new European Climate Resilience Framework.

Investors’ perspective on getting it right.

This paper sets out Invest Europe's overall assessment of the European Commission’s SFDR 2.0 proposal, highlighting both its key strengths and the remaining challenges, particularly from a PE/VC perspective. It also provides targeted recommendations aimed at addressing these concerns and enhancing the effectiveness of the revised framework, ensuring it remains proportionate and adaptable to the diversity of asset classes, business models, and investors within its scope.

The Institutions for Occupational Retirement Provision (IORP) Directive review offers an opportunity: decoupling the concept of prudence to investments in specific types of assets or sectors - notably listed or daily-traded instruments.

Prudence should be seen holistically. IORP – and the national legislation implementing it in practice - should designed to invite pension funds to construct well-diversified portfolios which meet their long-term liabilities, not portfolios that are mostly made up of low value, short-term assets.

Invest Europe welcomes the opportunity to contribute to the evaluation and recast of the DAC6 and the potential integration of the Unshell Directive (ATAD3) into a simplified framework. While recognising that DAC plays an important role in enhancing tax transparency and combating aggressive cross-border tax planning, Invest Europe highlights that the current application of DAC6 across Member States is fragmented and imposes disproportionate administrative burdens on intermediaries and investors.

Invest Europe has responded to the public consultation on a possible recast of DAC 1–9, calling for a more harmonised, proportionate and legally certain application of DAC6. The reply highlights the need for clearer EU-level guidance, streamlined reporting obligations, and greater transparency in the use of reported data to reduce unnecessary compliance burdens while preserving effective tax transparency.

This webinar was the opportunity to hear about recent developments affecting EU and UK fund management rules, not least the publication of the new European Commission on Market Integration and the EuGrowth initiative. During the call were also discussed recent developments in the UK, as well as potential future developments on financial stability related rules.

From a private capital perspective, Europe’s proposed 28th regime has the potential to reduce legal fragmentation, enhance investability, and better support capital flows across the full growth journey of European companies. A practical, pan-European corporate framework could mobilize Europe’s private capital ecosystem, if it keeps into account the financing needs of the businesses targeted by the regime.

The Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive (AIFMD or Directive 2011/61/EU) creates a comprehensive regulatory and supervisory framework for the management and marketing of private equity, venture capital and other alternative investment funds (AIFs) in the European Economic Area. The harmonised European standards for alternative investment fund managers (AIFMs) aim to enhance the transparency of the activities of AIFMs and the funds they manage towards investors and public authorities.

The ELTIF Regulation came into force in 2015 and created a new European product framework for both professional and retail investors looking to invest in long-term assets. To qualify as an ELTIF, a fund must first be an Alternative Investment Fund and then meet certain other conditions. Eligible investments include debt and equity instruments in all unlisted companies, as well as real assets such as infrastructure.