Mid-term Evaluation of the Risk-Sharing Finance Facility

The concept of a Risk-Sharing Finance Facility (RSFF) represents a first “European scale programme” by the European Commission (EC) to use debt-based finance, to complement more traditional financing means for Research, Development and Innovation such as grants (as under the Framework Programmes FP), or equity and corporate cash flows. The risk-sharing feature refers to the sharing of risks between the EC and the European Investment Bank (EIB). The RSFF was established in June 2007, through a co-operation agreement between the EC and the EIB.

The RSFF implementation had to be evaluated in 2010 by an external assessment conducted by a group of independent experts, to provide a basis for the decision of the Council and the European Parliament whether to release the second tranche of up to EUR 500 million for the RSFF for the period 2011-2013. The expert group recommended the immediate release of the second tranche of EU contribution of € 500 million as foreseen in the legal base of FP7 (€ 400m SP Cooperation; € 100m SP Capacities).