Europe’s secret €25 billion stash

The fund aims to use the €25 billion invested by the EIB to inject   €200 billion into the European economy. Yet while this may sound good in principle, systemic problems abound with the EGF.

Firstly, the EGF itself is so mired in secrecy that it is difficult to assess its actual impact. From who makes the decisions to who finally benefits, substantial amounts of public money are being disbursed with zero public scrutiny. Given how little information is publicly available on the EGF, even assessing whether the fund makes a difference or not to the European economy is problematic. It’s possible that similar results could have been achieved without the use of public money. Only time will tell if the EGF is a hidden bailout for the financial sector, or if it creates economic breathing space for small businesses across Europe.

Both the EIB and private banks hide behind corporate confidentiality to justify this lack of transparency and dodge public scrutiny. Yet the information they claim to be protecting to preserve corporate competition is often available on private databases which businesses can pay to access.

This lack of transparency also could be hiding the fact that the EIB is providing large banks and investment funds with access to massive credit lines, guarantees and other complex financial instruments with few strings attached. This is despite the EGF being designed in theory to support small and medium sized businesses in Europe.

The EGF is also being used to support risky financial engineering such as ‘asset-backed securities’ - a financial technique partly implicated in the 2008 financial crisis. This has been done without real public debate or democratic scrutiny.

We spoke to Counter Balance Director Xavier Sol to discuss the problems with the EGF in more detail.

This podcast is produced by CEO and Counter Balance. Both NGOs raise awareness on the importance of good governance in the EU by researching issues like lobbying of large and powerful industries, corporate capture of decision making, corruption, fraud, human rights violations in areas like Big Tech, agro-business, biotech & chemical companies, the financial sector & public investment banks, trade, energy & climate, scientific research and much more…

You can find us on iTunes, Spotify & Buzzsprout. Stay tuned for more independent and in-depth information that concerns every EU citizen!