The Juncker Plan is now expected to trigger more than EUR 177 billion in total investments. These figures follow last week’s meeting of the European Investment Bank (EIB) Board of Directors.
This comes just two years after the Plan was launched by the Juncker Commission and represents well over half of the EUR 315 billion target of total investments mobilised that was originally earmarked.
The operations approved under the EFSI represent a total financing volume of over EUR 32 billion and are located in all 28 Member States. The EIB has now approved 197 EFSI-backed infrastructure projects worth over EUR 24 billion.
The European Investment Fund (EIF) has approved 264 SME financing agreements, with total financing under the EFSI of over EUR 8 billion. Over 400,000 SMEs and Midcaps are expected to benefit from these agreements.
The Commission’s proposal to extend the EFSI (the so-called “EFSI 2.0” proposal) has already made good progress. At its December meeting, the European Council welcomed an agreement by EU Finance Ministers to give their backing to the proposal and called for the extension to be adopted by the co-legislators in the first half of 2017.
President Juncker has made it clear that the EFSI 2.0 is among the Commission’s top legislative priorities and, as such, he looks forward to collaborating closely with the European Parliament to ensure its swift adoption.
