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Through the JEREMIE (Joint European Resources for Micro to Medium Enterprises) initiative, EIF supports the EU cohesion policy by providing its services and expertise as a Holding Fund manager.

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. We manage the Holding Funds on behalf of a number of national and regional authorities. Especially in new Mem-ber States and regional development areas, JEREMIE provides leverage to the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and European Social Fund (ESF) funds available with inno-vative financial engineering products, encouraging a move away from grant dependency and offering a diversified range of financial solutions for the ben-efit of micro, small and medium-sized businesses.

Since the nineties, EIF has continu-ously broadened its geographical reach and now covers all EU coun-tries. However, we seek to further expand our reach and impact by fa-cilitating access to finance for SMEs throughout Europe by providing tar-geted financing solutions. We are involved in a number of initiatives set up to respond to the particular needs of specific regions in Europe.

JEREMIE combines resources from the EC and the EIB as well as funds from National Public Authorities and/or other financial institutions.

JEREMIE’s structure is unique: through respective national or regional man-aging authorities, EU Member States

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