‘The netherlands hundreds of millions just are’ – NOS

the Netherlands makes too little use of European money for investment in major projects. “The money is there, but in the Netherlands the opportunities to benefit from”, says Hans de Boer of employers ‘ organisation VNO-NCW.

the Netherlands is almost at the bottom in the list of the countries that benefited, while countries such as Slovakia, Lithuania, Ireland and – in the words of The Farmer – “even the Greeks” the pot with a deal of investment money to know to find.

In 2015 founded commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI), for that reason also the Junckerfonds called. This is now 315 billion euro, and Brussels, this will even increase to 500 billion euro.

the Netherlands has so far only 161,5 million from that fund for the submitted investment plans. Ratio of had that half a billion euro more could have been. Except the Netherlands, Austria, Denmark and Germany, up to now little use of the Junckerfonds.

“It is a shame, because it offers companies and public authorities opportunities to invest in the great challenges we face”, says The Farmer. “Think of a more sustainable energy system, construction of a heating network, new infrastructure, re-use of raw materials, and digitization.”

According to the werkgeversvoorman is the most important reason is the fact that the Netherlands is not a separate counter where you have large and complicated projects can be logged and coordinated. “Great overgangsprojecten are complicated and complex, with many parties, and a national investment fund can be something better, to lift off the ground.”

in the Past, the National investment Bank (NIB), established in 1945, that role. But the bank went years ago in NIB Capital and later in the merchant bank NIBC.

There are at the office or planning to add in this government’s term of office, three banks, and a national office to merge to form a new investment bank. It comes to a merger between the development bank FMO, the waterschapsbank NWB, gemeentebank BNG and the financing arrangements of the National office for Entrepreneurial Netherlands (RVO).