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The European Fund for Strategic Investments,
which can invest in projects from infrastructure building to
expansion of small businesses, is the European Union's flagship
scheme to help address slack growth.
Jyrki Katainen, Vice President of the European Commission
responsible for jobs and growth, told journalists that its
set-up could be finalised by European Union leaders in June,
with a start date some months later.
"I expect that the fund itself will be up and running, let's
say, in September," he said, on a whistle-stop tour of Europe to
drum up investor and government interest in the scheme.
Katainen said, however, that it was unclear which governments
would invest money in the scheme, intended to be a
315-billion-euro ($358 billion) investment vehicle based on
modest financial guarantees given by states.
"There has been quite a lot of interest toward the fund but
nothing has been realiZed yet," he told journalists. "We built
the fund so that it can operate even without any additional
commitments. We don't have any expectations."
The late start-date may disappoint some. European Central Bank
President Mario Draghi, for example, recently urged EU leaders
to speed up the project.
The dire economic outlook prompted Draghi last week to unveil
last week a roughly 1-trillion-euro plan to print fresh money,
chiefly to buy government bonds.
He has told governments to do their part, by pursuing economic
reforms.
But finding agreement among the 19 countries in the euro zone,
from Germany to Greece, is difficult. This also slows progress
on broader EU schemes such as the joint investment fund.
(Reporting By John O'Donnell; editing by Philip Blenkinsop)
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European
investment fund set for September start
