Andalusië krijgt als eerste Spaanse regio stadsvernieuwingsfonds JESSICA (en)

Met dank overgenomen van Europese Investeringsbank (EIB) i, gepubliceerd op vrijdag 8 mei 2009.

PRESS RELEASE

BEI/09/71

Seville, 8 May 2009

Andalusia is first Spanish region to set up JESSICA holding fund

The European Investment Bank (EIB) and the Government of Andalusia have signed a financing agreement to launch a JESSICA holding fund in Andalusia. This establishes the fund’s operating procedures and initial capital of EUR 85.7 million from the European Union’s structural funds. The agreement was signed in Seville this morning by EIB Vice-President, Carlos da Silva Costa, and Andalusia’s Finance Minister, Carmen Martínez Aguayo.

JESSICA is a joint initiative of the European Commission and the EIB, set up in cooperation with the Council of Europe Development Bank, designed to foster investment in urban areas, speed up urban regeneration and improve European cities. To be eligible for financing, projects will have to form part of integrated urban development programmes that ensure their consistency and environmental quality. Today’s agreement provides for the holding fund to invest in projects submitted by municipal and/or sectoral urban development funds focusing on household energy consumption reduction or historic city centre restoration schemes.

The JESSICA mechanism makes it possible to channel money from the EU structural funds into projects that are attractive to private enterprise but need public financial support. Once repaid, the funds, along with the return on the investment, can be re-used to finance new urban projects. The implementation of JESSICA, as an instrument of financial cooperation, is provided for in Andalusia’s ERDF Operational Programme[1] for the period 2007-2013.

The European Investment Bank is the European Union’s long-term financing institution promoting European objectives. Founded in 1957, it operates in the 27 EU Member States and more than 130 other countries worldwide.

Over the past five years the EIB has lent nearly EUR 30 billion for urban transport and urban renewal projects in a number of EU Member States, gaining broad experience of putting together and financing such projects. At the request of the promoters, the Bank will examine the possibility of lending from its own resources to projects receiving JESSICA financing.

Press contact:

Mercedes Sendín – tel.: 91 431 13 40 – email: SENDIN@eib.org

For further information, log on to the EIB’s website http://www.eib.org/jessica

 

[1] The Operational Programmes are detailed strategies for using the structural funds in the period 2007-2013 agreed between the Member States and the European Commission.