The Risk Sharing Finance Facility (RSFF), an innovative credit risk sharing scheme jointly set up by the European Commission and the EIB, as well as the financing instruments under the Competitiveness and Innovation Programme (CIP), support public private partnerships in the areas of research, technological development, demonstration and innovation.
Both RSFF and financial instruments of the CIP have proved their success:
- Since the launch of RSFF in July 2007, € 4.4 billion in loans have been approved for investments in R&D and innovation. The European Economic Recovery Plan foresees an accelerated implementation of RSFF.
- By the end of the second quarter of 2009, under the CIP, partnerships with the private sector were concluded in 16 agreements with venture capital funds from 14 countries. For the guarantee instrument, partnerships with public and private organisations resulted in 16 agreements with financial intermediaries from 10 countries. By the end of first quarter 2009, over 30 000 SMEs had received financing supported by the instruments.