Turning old sites into something new, and how it gets paid for by European Funds

Europe is putting a lot of money into old industrial sites this year.

In June 2026 the European Investment Bank put another €22 billion behind InvestEU, a scheme that uses public guarantees to get banks lending where they otherwise would not.¹ Clean technology and biotechnology were named. Six months earlier the EU had already raised its own backing for the same scheme to €29.1 billion.² For anyone financing a site, that is the difference between a bank saying no and a bank asking to see the numbers.

Grant money moved as well. In April a European research fund for bio-based industry opened €170.7 million, and 4 of its 13 subjects are large enough to pay for a first-of-its-kind plant at €20 million each.³

And it is not about to disappear. Regions that shift money towards the EU’s current priorities now have until the end of 2030 to spend it, 2 years longer than before.⁴ Europe published a new plan for the bio-based economy in November 2025, and in March 2026 ministers asked specifically for this science to move out of the laboratory and into production.⁵

For anyone holding a site that used to make something and might make something again, this is a good time to be asking.

Each kind of money pays for a different thing

The most useful habit I know is to write it down, line by line, before the funding diagram is drawn. It sounds obvious… but it really does help.

What each kind of money is actually paying for

That fund is a good example, because its guidance is unusually clear. Its largest projects have to get a technology working at close to full scale by the time the project ends. Machinery is usually bought through a contractor and charged to the project only for the years it is in use, not as a one-off purchase. And such a project does not need a new building at all, because an existing or restored one is fine.⁶

Two things follow for anyone doing the numbers. You can put a €20 million research project inside a hall you already own, or one you are bringing back to life, which takes a large figure off your entry cost. And the grant is not construction finance. Model it as capital and you find the hole at financial close, which is the worst possible moment to find it.

Who holds the site is a funding decision

The same habit applies to who owns what.

In Lower Saxony, the main EU regional funding line for bringing industrial and commercial sites back into use can only be applied for by local councils, groups of councils, and organisations that do not exist to make a profit.⁷ Read as an obstacle, that closes a door. Read as useful information, it says something better, which is that deciding who holds the site is itself a funding decision. In practice that means a joint vehicle with the council, or a non-profit body alongside the development company. Neither is exotic. Both take months to set up, which is why it belongs in the first conversation and not the fifth.

The map is also redrawn more often than the documents that quote it. Germany’s €2.5 billion fund for regions moving away from coal went to 4 states in October 2022, so a site anywhere else needs to tell its story through a different scheme.⁸ An EU advisory service called URBIS still appears in older reference material, and its page now simply redirects, because that work moved into a newer advisory service which is free and open to private developers as well as public bodies.⁹ Neither of these is bad news. Both are worth checking in the week you are writing rather than the year the template was made. Checking costs an afternoon. Finding out late costs a funding round.

The window this autumn

The 2026 window is narrow and still open, and gives a view of how each year typically runs. A project that is not ready for the September dates waits most of a year, and holding a site, an owner and a council together for a year is its own kind of financing.

What got easier, and what did not

Alongside the money, the rules moved. Reporting on the InvestEU scheme dropped from twice a year to once, and its backing can now be combined with three older EU schemes it replaced.² The regional funding review also allowed more money to be paid up front, and made it easier to move funds between programmes.⁴ Both help long projects.

Horizon Europe went a different way where roughly half its subjects for 2026 and 2027 now pay a fixed price for an agreed piece of work rather than reimbursing actual costs, and that approach is proposed as the norm in the programme that follows.¹⁰ It is easier to administer, which is the point of it. It is also a different kind of proof because you show you delivered what you promised, rather than what each item cost. Which means your cost allocation has to be designed before anyone pours concrete, and the person managing the grant and the person managing the build have to agree where the line sits. On most sites those 2 people have never met.

And the question underneath all of it does not yet have a published answer. I could not find any EU rule from 2025 or 2026 setting out how grants and loans combine on the same physical asset. The standard EU guidance on the subject was written before this year’s changes.¹¹ The bio-based fund’s own guidance does not mention regional funding at all.⁶

What exists instead is a practice, and it is a good one. You ask both funders for their view in writing before you commit, and you keep the letter. Because in 2032 someone will be asked how a particular wall was paid for, and they will not have been in the room. They will have whatever was written down. Good governance is your key.

Which makes the interesting question less about how many sources a project can carry, and more about what has to be recorded now, and by whom, so that a stranger can defend a decision they never made. That is a governance question wearing a finance costume, and it is answered years before anyone asks, or not at all.

A short glossary of terms

THE WORDS

Blended finance  Paying for one project out of several different pots at once, usually mixing public grants, loans and private money. Each pot has its own rules.

Capital stack  The list of those pots, and the order in which each one gets repaid if things go wrong.

Grant  Money you do not repay, given for a defined purpose, with conditions and reporting attached.

Guarantee  A promise by a public body to cover part of a lender’s losses, so the lender will lend to something it otherwise would not.

Fixed-price funding (lump sum)  The funder pays an agreed amount for an agreed piece of work. You prove you delivered it rather than proving what each item cost.

Pre-financing  Money paid at the start rather than in arrears, so the project is not funding itself out of its own pocket while it waits.

Double funding  Being paid twice from public sources for the same cost. Not allowed, and the main reason funders care where one pot stops and the next begins.

Technology readiness  A 1 to 9 scale describing how far a technology has come. Level 8 means a complete system proven in its real working environment.

Depreciation  Spreading the cost of equipment across the years it is used, rather than charging it all in the year it was bought.

Eligible applicant  The kind of organisation allowed to apply for a given fund. Often a council or a non-profit body rather than a commercial company.

Managing authority  The regional body that runs EU money in a given state or region, decides what is fundable and answers for it later. In Lower Saxony this work runs through the state investment bank, NBank.

THE INSTITUTIONS

European Commission  The EU’s executive. Proposes the funding programmes and the rules that govern them. ec.europa.eu

European Investment Bank (EIB)  The EU’s own bank. Lends to large projects and runs free advisory services for them. eib.org

CINEA  The Commission agency that runs the LIFE Programme and several others. cinea.ec.europa.eu

Circular Bio-based Europe Joint Undertaking (CBE JU)  A partnership between the EU and the bio-based industry that funds research and first-of-a-kind plants. cbe.europa.eu

Joint Undertaking  A body jointly owned by the EU and an industry sector, with its own budget and its own call for proposals.

InvestEU Advisory Hub  A free EU service that helps project developers get a project to the point of being fundable. Open to private and public promoters. eib.org

fi-compass  The EU’s advisory platform explaining how loans, guarantees and grants can be combined. fi-compass.eu

THE FUNDS

InvestEU  An EU scheme that uses public guarantees to make private and bank finance available to projects that would otherwise struggle to borrow.

Horizon Europe  The EU’s main research and innovation programme. Cluster 6 is the part covering food, bioeconomy, agriculture and the environment.

LIFE Programme  The EU’s funding programme for environment and climate action. Pays for demonstrating that something works, not for building it at scale.

EU regional funds (ERDF and cohesion policy)  Money distributed through regions and states to reduce economic gaps between them. Usually the only European source that pays for land and basic site infrastructure.

ESF+  The EU fund for skills, training and employment, often used for the workforce side of a site transformation.

Just Transition Fund  EU money for regions moving away from coal and other carbon-heavy industry. In Germany it went to 4 states only.

Interreg  EU funding for projects that work across national borders, organised by sea basin or region.

URBIS  A former EU urban investment advisory facility. No longer operating as a separate service.

Sources

1. European Investment Bank, press release 2026-201, 10 June 2026, €22 billion of new EIB Group financing under InvestEU.
2. Council of the European Union, Council signs off simplification of InvestEU programme, 11 December 2025. EU guarantee raised from €26.2 billion to €29.1 billion, reporting moved from semi-annual to annual, combination permitted with the earlier EFSI, CEF Debt Instrument and InnovFin schemes.
3. CBE JU, 2026 call for proposals, published 23 April 2026, deadline 22 September 2026, €170.7 million across 13 topics including 4 Flagship Innovation Actions at €20 million. cbe.europa.eu/open-calls-proposals
4. Regulations (EU) 2025/1913 and (EU) 2025/1914, adopted 18 September 2025, in force 20 September 2025, cohesion policy mid-term review.
5. European Commission, EU Bioeconomy Strategy, COM(2025) 960, adopted 27 November 2025. Council conclusions on bioeconomy, 17 March 2026.
6. CBE JU, Frequently asked questions for applicants, on Flagship technology readiness level 8, equipment charged as depreciation, and existing or reconstructed infrastructure being acceptable. cbe.europa.eu/faq-applicants
7. Förderdatenbank, Förderung hochwertiger wirtschaftsnaher Infrastrukturmaßnahmen (EFRE), Niedersachsen. Eligible applicants are municipalities, municipal associations, non-profit legal entities and legal entities not oriented to profit.
8. European Commission, EU Cohesion Policy, €2.5 billion for a just climate transition in Germany, 21 October 2022. Allocations to North Rhine-Westphalia, Brandenburg, Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt.
9. EIB, InvestEU Advisory Hub. The former EIAH URBIS page redirects to advisory.eib.org.
10. European Commission, Horizon Europe work programme 2026 to 2027, adopted 11 December 2025. Approximately half of topics moved to lump-sum funding, with lump sums proposed as default in the successor programme.
11. fi-compass, Combination of financial instruments and grants. Guidance predates the 2025 and 2026 changes described above.