Out-Law News 1 min. read

New EU financial instruments service ‘to boost strategic investments’


A new service aimed at providing advice and support for potential investors to boost strategic financing for a range of public and private projects across the EU has been launched by the European Commission.

The Commission said on 19 January that ‘fi compass’, a financial instruments service for the European Structural and Investment Fund, is a partnership with the European Investment Bank (EIB).

The new service is part of a "one stop shop advisory hub”, designed to assist potential investors in making the most of a €315 billion investment plan launched towards the end of last year by Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker.

Commission vice-president Jyrki Katainen said: “There is money out there, but investors tell us that they need well-structured projects and access to clear information to reconnect investment finance with a pipeline of trusted projects. We want to fast track the work to set up a technical hub, which will provide a one-stop shop for advice and support for potential investors. The launch of fi-compass is an important step in the right direction.”

Financial instruments “represent a resource-efficient way of using EU budget funds to enable investment in the economy”, the Commission said. “They will include loans, guarantees, equity, venture capital and other risk-bearing instruments, possibly combined with interest rate subsidies or guarantee fee subsidies.” Fi compass aims to “enhance technical assistance, with an advisory hub to provide all the necessary financial and technical support to public and private promoters, and providing transparency to investors”.

“A transparent project pipeline of viable projects will be launched with the EIB later this year,” the Commission said.  

Earlier this month, the Commission introduced a legislative proposal for the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI) (45-page / 264 KB PDF) to help “channel investments where they are most needed, make Europe more attractive for investment and remove regulatory bottlenecks”.

The EFSI, which is also being set up in partnership with the EIB, “will be built on a guarantee of €16bn from the EU budget, combined with €5bn committed by the EIB,” the Commission said. “Based on prudent estimates from historical experience, the multiplier effect of the fund will be 1:15. In other words, for every public euro that is mobilised through the fund, €15 of total investment, that would not have happened otherwise, is generated.”

The Commission said last year that taken as a whole, new investment measures could add between €330bn and €410bn to the EU’s gross domestic product over the next three years and create up to 1.3 million new jobs.

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