Román Escolano, Vice-President of the European Investment Bank, today led the fourth edition of the Financial Meeting, jointly promoted by CECA and AEB, with the aim of connecting the Spanish financial industry with key figures from European institutions. On this occasion, the meeting, held at CECA’s Madrid headquarters, brought together more than two hundred professionals, including representatives from regulatory and supervisory authorities, sector executives, and other participants from the financial industry.
In his presentation, Román Escolano defined the Investment Plan for Europe as “a tool designed to give a strong boost to investment in Europe. The objective of this Plan is to mobilize an additional 315 billion euros in investments by 2018.”
He also stated that “the novelty of EFSI (“European Fund for Strategic Investments”) lies in the fact that the EIB will now be able to take on more risks in projects and on a much larger scale than it has been able to do until now, without compromising its business model and its maximum credit rating.”
Regarding the opportunities for companies wishing to access these instruments, he indicated that “like all loan operations with EIB financing, projects requiring funding under EFSI will be carefully selected based on their viability and technical, financial, and environmental specifications.”
In his opening remarks, José María Méndez, Director General of CECA and independent expert advisor to the EIB, highlighted the important stimulating role of this institution, given that “in the last six years it has invested 61 billion euros in the Spanish economy.” He also emphasized the “opportunities that the Investment Plan for Europe represents for Spanish SMEs,” as confirmed by the fact that “in 2015 they received more than 8 billion euros from the EIB.”
For his part, the President of AEB, José María Roldán, stressed the increasing participation of Spanish banking entities in the EIB Group’s initiatives. Specifically, he referred to two specific projects: one called “SME Initiative,” through which the EIF (European Investment Fund) has reached bilateral agreements with major banks to finance, for the first time, projects under a risk-sharing formula, a shared risk modality between financing banks and the EIF. He also commented that “Spanish banks have begun to develop an intensive program of contacts and working meetings with the EIB, with the aim of launching the EFSI initiative as quickly as possible.”
