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Katainen, Crețu and EIB on combining EU Structural Funds and 'Juncker Plan' to maximise their impact

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• published: 25 Feb 2016
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EN - Combining the European Structural and Investment Funds (ESI Funds) with the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI or 'Juncker Plan') to maximise the impact of these complementary funds to foster jobs and growth: press conference by Jyrki Katainen, Vice-President of the European Commission in charge of Jobs, Growth, Investment and Competitiveness, Corina Creţu, Member of the European Commission in charge of Regional Policy, and Ambroise Fayolle, Vice-President of the European Investment Bank (EIB) - FULL version - 22.02.2016 - European Commission, Berlaymont building, Brussels. EXTRACTS OF THE TRANSCRIPT - Jyrki Katainen: "EFSI is up and running ; it has already 45 projects, basically it means infrastructure or industrial investment projects, and in addition to this, there are 104 agreements between European Investment Fund and intermediary banks on SME financing. All these operations, both SME financing operations and other projects are in 22 member states. (...) Around 75% of these € 64 bln which go to the real economy comes from private sector. So, € 9 bln from public sector to cover part of the private (...) risk, will crowd in lots of private resources. And of course this all means a lot of new jobs. (...) Strategic combination of ESI Funds, structural funds, and EFSI can help in collective and coordinated efforts to tackle the drop in investment across Europe or in particular regions. ESI Funds and EFSI can mobilise a decent investment by complementing each other and optimising the additionality of investment. These funds have been designed in a different way but they are complementary in terms of rationale, design and legislative framework. So, in other words, they reinforce each other. (...)" Corina Cretu: "I think this is a very important day, because with this brochure, which has been awaited for such a long time by member states, it's a first step to know how to combine these funds in order to maximise the Investment Plan (...) According to our estimations, € 300 bln are missing to put the European economy back on a sustainable growth and job path. This is a problem of course notably for more than 22 million people that are unemployed today. That's why it is of the utmost importance that the Commission and the European Investment Bank (EIB) join forces and work together to help filling this investment gap. (...) The combination of these funds with the investment plan can maximise, as Jyrki said, the impact of EU actions in areas such as SMEs, energy efficiency, information and communication technologies, transport and many others. This is an ambitious objective I admit, but I also believe that we have to live up to these ambitions: we have the means to develop our pipeline of mature projects that are attractive to private investments. (...)" Ambroise Fayolle, EIB Vice-President: "Our transactions cover all sectors eligible for EFSI in 22 countries, with a focus on smaller businesses and renewable energy projects. Now this is clearly a satisfactory outcome for a period of time that has been quite short ", but it is also clear that we need to accelerate if we want to reach our target of € 315 bln by the summer of 2018. (...) We are putting tremendous effort in development of new products that could reach new clients. We do have sectors and areas where EFSI alone will not be enough to counter market failures and sub-optimal investment situation. Some projects nee grants in addition to EFSI to bridge the remaining funding gaps. They need additional risk-bearing capacities to attract private investors and increase and maximise leverage. That is where the EU budget, in particular the important resources of the European Structural Investment Funds come into play. (...)" © Frédérick Moulin 2016 - EU2016 - European Commission - All rights reserved.