European Investment Bank Aims to Provide Greater Support to Startups

The European Investment Bank (EIB) said Monday (Oct. 7) that European Union (EU) finance ministers have welcomed its Action Plan to deepen the region’s capital markets and provide more support to startups.

In discussions at the Eurogroup in Luxembourg, finance ministers supported proposals to finance the scale-up of European unicorns, the EIB said in a Monday press release.

“The EIB Group is itself already a Capital Markets Union instrument,” EIB Group President Nadia Calviño said in the release. “The Action Plan discussed with ministers will help European innovators scale up their businesses and contribute to channel savings into productive investments, boost innovation, create jobs and lead Europe toward a more robust growth model, ensuring that European companies born in Europe, stay in Europe.”

One part of the Action Plan calls for the EIB Group to improve market integration for green and digital bonds by continuing to play a leading role in the market through issuance and scaling up bond acquisition, according to the release.

The EIB Group also plans to help “close the financing gap” and keep innovative scale-ups in Europe by scaling up its support for the EU venture capital and private equity markets, the release said.

The third element of the Action Plan involves the EIB Group mobilizing large-scale investments for EU policy priorities, per the release. This could include, for example, working on a financing platform for housing.

These efforts aim to solve the capital markets fragmentation that has been an impediment to European competitiveness and to develop cross-border capital markets that function well, according to the release.

“The EIB Group is uniquely positioned to support the development of a European Savings and Investments Union, as it is the only truly pan-European financial institution, with operations in every member state and every region of the EU,” the release said.

It was reported in April that EU nations need private investments of 650 billion euros (about $706.5 billion) per year through 2030 to shift to renewable energy and a more digital economy.

At the same time, investors currently find the U.S. market to be better organized, less complex and more liquid.