The EIB investment plan’s ‘financial pillar’, which is aimed at increasing investments in a range of sectors and SMEs, has already shown a “strong and durable impact”, both on creating new jobs and increase gross domestic product, EIB research shows.
Currently the initiative has €16bn guaranteed from the EU budget and €5bn from the European Investment bank.
“The plan has set the economy in motion, and it’s a motion that’s self-sustaining,” said Debra Revoltella, EIB’s director of economics.
“That’s a success for the European economy and for the EIB, because we are all about jobs and growth.”
The bank’s loans, made under the Investment Plan’s European Fund for Strategic Investment, are likely to have a “major impact” on the European economy, the bank said.
By 2020, the bank expects to support €161bn of investment, add 0.7% to EU GDP and 690,000 jobs, through the loans approved by the plan.
The overall investments approved by the bank group within the EU in 2015-16 could add 2.25m jobs and 2.3% to the GDP by 2020, the bank’s research found.
Revoltella said: “Our main purpose is improving EU competitiveness and long-term growth. These findings show that in the long-term we will have a much bigger European economy, regardless of the economic cycle.”
The EIB investment plan aims to help businesses which struggle to get financial backing from banks after the crisis to succeed, creating more jobs and boosting GDP.
Negotiations are ongoing in Brussels for an extension to the programme and an increase in its size.
The study showed the plan will continue to have a strong structural effect on the economy over the next 20 years.
“The impact is big and it persists over time. In 20 years, there will still be jobs around that are the result of these investments,” said Natasha Valla, head of EIB’s economic policy and strategy division.
“That’s a key positive outcome form the investment plan and all the bank’s operations.”
The other two pillars of the EIB investment plan is ensuring investment reaches the ‘real economy’ and improving investment in the environment.
