Financial instruments to address the COVID-19 crisis

Financial instruments can be effectively used not only to support energy efficiency measures as we show in the FIRECE project, but also to address the actual issue of the COVID-19 crisis.

Within the framework of the Coronavirus Response Investment Initiative, the fi-compass platform has recently issued the document “Responding to the COVID-19 crisis through financial instruments” that aims at helping the mobilisation of ESIF financial instruments, sometimes in combination with grants, to respond to the COVID-19 health crisis and its social and economic impact.

In this respect, ESIF financial instruments could have a role to play in ensuring the continued supply of affordable finance to individuals and businesses most affected by the crisis, and primarily in need of liquidity and working capital facilities to continue working/operating.

A number of possibilities how financial instruments can be used in the given way are presented for consideration, including:

  • Use of existing ESIF financial instruments to quickly mobilise finance in support of businesses during the current crisis;
  • Implementation of new financial instruments in response to the crisis (e.g. guarantee or risk sharing loan instruments);
  • Combination of existing or new financial instruments with grants (including in the form of interest rate or guarantee fee subsidies and grants for working capital support);
  • Development of a stand-alone grant support programme to provide grants (including for interest rate subsidies and/or capital/ investment grants).

The publication is available under the following link: https://www.fi-compass.eu/publication/factsheets/factsheet-responding-covid-19-crisis-through-financial-instruments.