European Fund for Strategic Investments

The European Investment Bank - and by extension the European Union budget - is among the biggest losers from the streamlining plan for troubled cold cuts producer Creta Farms.

As one of the MEPs who worked most actively on the creation and distribution of the European Fund for Strategic Investments under the Juncker Plan, I am proud that Bulgaria ranks fourth in the European Union in terms of attracted investment in terms of gross domestic product.

The European Fund for Strategic Investments will provide financial assistance of BGN 10 million for 320 micro-enterprises in Bulgaria, announced the European Commission.

Greece has topped the European Union chart in activating investments in the context of the European Fund for Strategic Investments, dubbed the Juncker Plan, in proportion to its gross domestic product, according to data presented by the European Commission on Tuesday.

Financially troubled deli producer Creta Farms is in limbo, with its creditors refusing to accept any solution other than brothers Manolis and Konstantinos Domazakis, who own an 80 percent stake, putting their shares up as collateral for a new 8-million-euro loan.

The European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI), the Junker Fund, is expected to mobilize €398.6 billion in investments. The decision was made on the latest meeting of the European Investment Bank (EIB) Board of Directors.

The European Investment Bank on Thursday announced the signing of a 24-million-euro financing agreement with Greece's Terna Energy Group to help fund the development, construction and operation of two windfarms on Mount Vermio in northern Greece.

Alpha Bank acted as co-lender, providing an equivalent amount of long-term debt next to a medium-term VAT facility.

Bulgaria's leading sunflower and oil producer and grain trader has secured a loan agreement with the European Investment Bank. The financing will be used for the construction of a new sunflower oilseed production plant and storage and logistic facilities in the Beloslav municipality near Varna.

The European Parliament's Employment Committee has accepted a proposal from Greece's Alternate Labor Minister Rania Antonopoulou for the exemption of expenditure for combating unemployment from calculations of state deficits and debts according to the Stability Pact.

The Economy Ministry is setting up an infrastructure fund with the contribution of European authorities that will finance projects amounting to 1 billion euros in the form of public-private partnerships (PPPs).