Europe’s role in corporate lending

“Hello, I’m Jesus. I’m a businessman. I’m 50 years old and I want to know what the EU is doing to free-up credit for businesses.”

“I am Gerhard Huemer from the European Association of Craft, Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises, and the answer to your question is that there are two instruments at the european level : first, the European Investment Bank doubled the amount of money up to 10 billion euros a year to refinance bank, loans to small and medium size enterprises.

Secondly, the European Commission widened the possibility to give guaranties for credit and loans to enterprises significantly.

However it depends now on the member states and the banks at the national level to use theses instruments and our experiences day to day are that there are significant differences between member states using them.”

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