The European City Facility (EUCF) www.eucityfacility.eu is a European initiative to support municipalities, local authorities and their groupings across Europe to develop investment concepts to accelerate investments in sustainable energy. In form of a € 60k grant, the EUCF finances services and activities to support the development of the investment concept, such as (technical) feasibility studies, market analysis, stakeholder analysis, legal, economic and financial analysis, risk analysis and the coordination and organization activities. The grant is hence not meant to directly finance investments. It is used to access services and develop an investment concept, which might become a door-opener for many follow-up investments (from ELENA, to PDAs to private investments).

Project is implemented by Consortium of 5 partners www.eucityfacility.eu/about/the-consortium.htmlv 

Ekotermija and its expert Šarūnas Prieskienis was selected by the Consortium as Country expert for Lithuania. Country Experts are a key feature of the consortium approach to the EUCF design. Country expert activities are split into 2 phases:

1. Pre-application phase: all the activities related to the information and support actions provided to cities applying to the EUCF (running the country helpdesk, informing target groups about EUCF, presenting the EUCF at info sessions, training etc.). 

2. Post-application phase: all the activities related to the support provided to the successful cities benefiting from the City Facility funding. These activities include supporting the Core Management Team in needs assessment and grant agreement preparation, providing guidance to the beneficiary cities in the development of their Investment Concept upon need, as well as the monitoring the Investment Concept development and implementation.