EIF: Celebrating 30 years old, 30 years bold
Over thirty years, the EIF has been designing and deploying financial instruments that absorb risk to make financing more accessible to small businesses across Europe. More than half a trillion worth of financing.
But generating this financing would not have been possible without the contribution of like-minded partners that work with us: from the EIB, the European Commission, national and local authorities that entrust us with their resources, to the banks, funds, and other institutions that make sure the financing reaches its targets on the ground — all of them bold in their risk-taking. But every one of our EUR 613bn worth of mobilised financial support is also linked to an entrepreneur somewhere, who is rising to the challenge, taking on the competition and navigating the world of business — the embodiment of the word bold.
Bringing all of that together, we felt that the celebrations to mark 30-years-bold needed to involve all of these actors, first to look back, but also to look ahead.
Monday June 10th was a moment for more than 475 guests and partners to take stock of our common achievements, including an SME Expo that showcased 38 businesses and two individuals we have collectively supported through the years, spread out across the four public policy areas that define our work today: competitiveness, innovation, sustainability and social impact. The Expo was an opportunity to get up close and personal with people we have supported, experience their products, and engage with them in a truly interactive setting.
Turning the page, the next day was about sitting together and asking ourselves some difficult questions.
While we are all united in the pursuit of a greener, digital and more inclusive future, how can we really ensure that these targets are met? Can we think about the challenges differently and conceive solutions that don’t involve more of the same? Could we going about this differently?
A business case for the planet: from extractive to circular economy
We were joined first by Dr Jan-Gilbert Schultze, of Acton Capital, who made a fascinating presentation in which he drew parallels between the way the soil and the planet operate in regenerative fashion, and the linear, extractive model that we apply in the way we go about our existence, from our daily lives right through to the way we run the economy. Underlining that we are in a degenerative spiral, Jan-Gilbert called for a paradigm shift to re-align with the universal principles of life, like diversity, collaboration in the form of interdependent symbiosis and circularity, ultimately introducing the rights of life and the rights of nature into our laws and P&L calculations. Concluding on what it would take to shift to a circular economy, he concluded that “the people in this room can change the world if we work together. We need to re-align with the living system.”
Meta-trends: cancer immunotherapy
The discussion then turned to meta-trends that Europe should not be missing, in particular in the areas of global health and energy. Dr Sara Mangsbo of Uppsala University explained how precision medicine is being combined with immunotherapy and boosted with data to allow us to make new drugs that we couldn’t even have imagined in the past. When it comes to tailored vaccines, she made a call for European policy-makers and the investor community to maintain the fast-track approach we saw with covid, change the way we lead clinical trials to make sure that they are performed in Europe and focus on innovation and educational leadership to ensure continued industrial growth in the healthcare sector. In short, she said, “Europe needs to bring back big and bold.”
Meta-trends: clean energy from nuclear fusion
She was followed by Moritz Von der Linden, CEO of Marvel Fusion, who touched upon the challenge of decarbonising while protecting our old industries in Europe like steel and chemicals that are very energy-demanding. “We need an energy source that protects our standard of living while also tackling climate change,” he argued, pointing to nuclear fusion as the answer. “It’s clean, safe, abundant and reliable.” His vision came with a wake-up call as well, as he explained how his company has had to invest in facilities in the US “because there was no money for this in the EU.” The case for improved access to finance couldn’t be clearer. “We can be fast, we can be ultra-competitive, and we can be in Europe. But it takes everyone in this room and beyond to change this funding picture, to ensure world-changing non-linear breakthroughs.”
Making social inclusion truly inclusive
Finally, the third session of the day looked at people and what can be done to make social inclusion efforts truly inclusive, with insights from Cristina Gonzalez Viu of Microbank, Peter Surek of Erste Bank and Mathieu Cornieti of Impact Partners. The discussion touched upon many aspects of the inclusion debate, including, for example, the critical role of housing and improved living conditions in helping a vulnerable family adapt and change their approach, giving them a better chance of integrating effectively into the workforce. It touched upon the role of the CMU in financing the social sector, based on our common European sensitivities, and also on the need to “move the giants” with reference to the big banks and pension funds, whose resources could make a difference on the ground in social policy terms. Peter also argued that “many social issues could be tackled at lower cost in preventive fashion, rather than fire-fighting at much higher cost.” Cristina called on policy-makers to ensure “that funds are available beyond InvestEU. We have worked with five different EIF programmes that are making a real difference on the ground. Please don’t discontinue them,” while Mathieu called for “an Erasmus-type programme for social entrepreneurs.”
Next level bold
All in all, this celebration of partnership culminated with a series of very thought-provoking interventions from EIF partners and experts in their respective fields, encouraging the audience to consider things differently, from the way we run our economies to the way we pursue social inclusion and the way we tackle the challenges in healthcare and energy generation, ultimately reflecting Marjut’s point that we will need to move to a whole new level of bold — next level bold — to rise to the challenges we are facing. Here’s to thirty more!
