European Commission President Unveils a $393 Billion Investment Plan

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker has given details of a €315bn (£250bn; $393bn) investment plan to kick-start Europe’s economy.

At its heart is a new €21bn fund that would provide loans for infrastructure projects. Mr Juncker hopes most of the rest of the money will come from private backers.

Only €8bn of the original money would come from the EU budget itself.

However, critics doubt it can attract so much private investment.

There was immediate scepticism from the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) whose General Secretary, Bernadette Segol, suggested the Commission was “relying on a financial miracle like the loaves and fishes”.

She said she did not believe that €315bn could be raised from €21bn, a leverage factor of 15 which the ETUC argued was “almost certainly unrealistic”.

The Commission believes it could create up to 1.3 million jobs with investment in broadband, energy networks and transport infrastructure, as well as education and research.

“Europe needs a kick-start and today the Commission is providing the jump leads,” Mr Juncker said as he detailed his ambitious five-year plan at the European Parliament in Strasbourg.

via BBC

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Alfonso Esparza

Alfonso Esparza

Senior Currency Analyst at Market Pulse
Alfonso Esparza specializes in macro forex strategies for North American and major currency pairs. Upon joining OANDA in 2007, Alfonso Esparza established the MarketPulseFX blog and he has since written extensively about central banks and global economic and political trends. Alfonso has also worked as a professional currency trader focused on North America and emerging markets. He has been published by The MarketWatch, Reuters, the Wall Street Journal and The Globe and Mail, and he also appears regularly as a guest commentator on networks including Bloomberg and BNN. He holds a finance degree from the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (ITESM) and an MBA with a specialization on financial engineering and marketing from the University of Toronto.
Alfonso Esparza