Investice jako nástroj centralizace evropské hospodářské politiky

This master thesis addresses the topic of investment and its role in the EU's central European economic policy. The aim of the thesis is to assess the use of EU central investment mechanisms affecting the EU's macroeconomic development and to propose appropriate reforms to address the long-standing problems of the EU's declining competitiveness in the global economy, low investment, and low economic growth in recent decades. Based on the literature, the thesis analyses the role of investment and the use of central economic policies in the EU. The thesis finds that the EU lags behind in particular in private investment in science and research, falling behind major geopolitical entities such as the US, Japan and partly China. The investment gap was particularly large after the global economic crisis in 2009 and the subsequent European debt crisis. This has also resulted in lower economic growth and innovation rates for European economies in the next decade, as investment is one of the main sources of economic growth. The paper also calls for the completion of the European Capital Markets Union, which can be an additional source of financing for higher risk projects to the already developed banking sector. The thesis also examined the role of the EU budget as it has been the main investment instrument of the EU. Although there has been a relatively strong reallocation of funds within the EU budget and the component focusing on European added value goods has started to rise, the biggest limiting factor of the EU budget has been still its volume. The EU therefore needs to secure a greater share of its own funding and not rely on Member States' contributions, which reduce the EU's autonomous decision-making in this area. Furthermore, the paper recommends further deepening the integration of the European single market, which has been the biggest source of economic growth since integration efforts began. Currently, a tipping point for the potential deeper centralisation of economic policies and the completion of the European Economic Monetary Union is the joint indebtedness of member states under the EU's Next Generation Rescue Fund. Indeed, this breakthrough mechanism is seen as a kind of experimental pre-requisite for boosting European value-added investments and projects with central management and a narrow focus on green transformation and digitisation.