Claeys, Gregory, Leandro,Alvaro, (2016), “Assessing the Juncker Plan after one year”, Bruegel, 17 May
With the Juncker Plan, the European Commission intends to support valuable risky projects by expanding the risk capacity of the EIB. But has the new European Fund for Strategic Investments really been used to finance ‘additional’ projects? Since the plan got underway, €11.2 billion worth of projects have been approved, initially by the EIB under the control of the Commission and, when it was finally set up at the beginning of 2016, by the EFSI Investment Committee, which is responsible for granting the support of the EU guarantee in line with the EFSI investment guidelines: €7.8 billion for EFSI-labelled infrastructure and innovation projects financed by the EIB directly, and €3.4 billion for SME financing through the European Investment Fund (EIF). The Juncker Plan’s take-off has been relatively slow considering that the plan foresees the EIB disbursing €60 billion in three years, ie €20bn/year, which we are still quite far from for the first year. The pace needs to be accelerated if President Juncker wants to fulfill his initial promise.
Relevant Posts
- Rubio, Eulalia, Rinaldi, David , Pellerin-Carlin, Thomas,(2016), “Investment in Europe: making the best of the Juncker Plan”, Jacques Delors Institute Studies&Reports, March
- Marty, O. (2015) “The Juncker Plan – the vehicle for revived European ambition?”, Fondation Robert Schuman – The Research and Studies Centre on Europe, European Issues – European Issue No. 347, 09 March