New fund for private cash in state projects
The Economy and Development Ministry is paving the way for the creation of an Infrastructures Fund, which willbe included in the European Commission’s so-called Juncker Plan for financing projects of public interest with private participation.
The participation of private funds is a prerequisite for an investment to be incorporated in the European Fund for Strategic Investment, as the Juncker Plan is formally named. The absence of mature proposals is the main reason why no investment out of a list of 42 projects budgeted at 5.6 billion euros and submitted by the ministry has been approved for funding to date.
The need to formulate an integrated proposal for the promotion of investments with a private partner has compelled the government to revise its policy in order to unblock the procedure. Therefore, its new plan provides for the projects to be proposed to the new fund for approval to include some private-sector participation, ie a Public-Private Partnership.
This way Greece will seek to secure the participation also of the European Investment Bank, which constitutes the financing arm of the Juncker Plan, as it is the EIB that funds the projects approved by the European fund.
