Brussels, 30/06/2016 (Agence Europe) - Facilitating access to finance to help companies in the cultural and creative sector is the aim of the new guarantee mechanism adopted on Thursday 30 June in Brussels by the European Commission and the European Investment Fund (see EUROPE 11581).
The European Commissioner for the Digital Economy and Society, Günther Oettinger, explained "Creative minds and creative businesses need experience and to take risks in order to flourish… We can help them obtain the bank loans that they ordinarily can't get".
This guarantee was set up as part of the Creative Europe programme and provides a figure of €121 million. According to the Commission's calculations, it should help to encourage bank loans "for amounts over €600 million over the next six years".
In concrete, it will enable the European Investment Fund (EFI) to provide guarantees and counter-guarantees free of charge to selected financial intermediaries. In practice, it will also provide these intermediaries with a guarantee covering up to 70% of losses and 25% of the guarantee portfolio. The new mechanism also includes activities for enhancing the financial intermediaries' capacity, so that they obtain expertise about essential questions relating to these sectors (for example, business models and risk assessments for specific loans). Ten thousand Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs) in the culture and creative sectors are expected to be direct beneficiaries of this new initiative. There are no specific per country objectives and the guarantee will instead depend on what demands are made.
In the next few days, the EFI will publish a call for expressions of interest in which eligible financial establishments such as banks, guarantee bodies and funds can participate. The EFI will then choose the financial intermediaries who will subsequently be able to make the new financial arrangements available to the SMEs and other targeted sectors. These intermediaries will have to provide detailed reports on the financial products they are proposing and their adoption by potential beneficiaries, explained the Commission. (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)