Regional Development

We provide targeted financial solutions to assist EU and Accession countries to develop their risk capital markets and reach sustainability to foster the regional SMEs lending sector. We aim to identify and address market failures and are committed to providing support to SMEs in less developed regions across the EU. Striving to respond to the particular needs of specific regions in Europe, the EIF is involved in a number of initiatives to promote regional business development and to use its expertise and experience to create market impact through local implementation of financial instruments.

EIF promotes regional development and EU cohesion policy through :

• JEREMIE (Joint European Resources for Micro to Medium Enterprises) - Support to SMEs in through EU structural funds

Through the JEREMIE initiative, EIF supports the EU cohesion policy by providing its services and expertise as a Holding Fund manager. JEREMIE combines resources from the European Commission and the European Investment Bank (EIB) as well as funds from National Public Authorities and/or other financi al institutions. JEREMIE’s structure is unique: through respective national or regional managing authorities, EU Member States have the opportunity to use part of their EU Structural Funds to provide risk financing to SMEs by means of equity, loans and guarantees. This is done via a revolving Holding Fund which acts as an umbrella fund. The EIF manages the Holding Funds on behalf of a number of national and regional authorities. Especially in new Member States and regional development areas, JEREMIE provides leverage to the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and European Social Fund (ESF) funds available with innovative financial engineering products, encouraging moving away from grant dependency and offering a diversified range of financial solutions for the benefit of micro-, small and medium-sized businesses.

The JEREMIE initiative covers all 27 EU Member States and is not restricted to Convergence Objective regions. All regions of both Convergence and Competitiveness Objectives are eligible, provided that Member States or Managing Authorities have identified the potential need for JEREMIE in their respective operational programmes and decide to implement JEREMIE.

JEREMIE could be available in a broad variety of sectors (with the exception of those excluded by the ERDF regulation). The specific objectives and market priorities of JEREMIE will be defined by the Managing Authorities based on ex-ante evaluations and could target a wide range of sectors such as information and communication technology (ICT) and biotechnology, or traditional economic sectors. Read more about JEREMIE

• Country and sector-specific initiatives and Funds-of Funds and Guarantee Debt funds

EIF’s expertise in partnering with national institutions is firmly established and forms a central part of its strategic development and regional business focus. EIF is advising, sponsoring or managing a number of equity Funds-of-Funds and guarantee / debt funds on behalf of third party investors, including national and regional governments as well as private strategic investors. The objective is to support EU policy objectives and provide a wide choice of financial solutions tailored to complement existing national schemes to support SMEs.

The table below gives an overview of EIF's initiatives rolled out in partnership with leading national institutions: