Joint Letter Calling for Expanding EIB Guarantees to Unlock EU Industrial Competitiveness

EASE, along with 38 European cleantech innovators, investors, industry associations, researchers and NGOs has called for expanding EIB guarantees to unlock EU industrial competitiveness. 

European cleantech manufacturers are being forced to turn down orders for lack of bank guarantees, which greatly limits the growth of these clean industries in Europe. Without a targeted solution, European manufacturers and supply chains will suffer competitively, with non-European competitors seizing the market share and undermining Europe’s industrial base.

This Friday 21 June 2024, the EIB’s Board of Governors will approve its new Strategic Roadmap for 2024-2027, which will support the EU build leadership and competitiveness in strategic cleantech sectors. Several such sectors are currently under pressure due to the large-scale investments being made by other global players like China and the US. A leaked version of the EIB Strategic Roadmap shows that guarantees are one of the EIB instruments that can efficiently address the financing gap of cleantech start-ups and SMEs by crowding-in private investments.

In response to this, a group of 39 European cleantech innovators, investors, industry associations, researchers and NGOs jointly call on the EIB to support the expansion of its public guarantee, as guarantees are essential in securing Europe’s energy transition and resilience. This tool can scale-up Europe's cleantech manufacturing significantly and reinforce the global competitiveness of EU green industry.

In this joint letter, the group of 39 organizations makes five detailed asks that outline how the EIB can help grow strategic cleantech sectors, particularly batteries and long-duration energy storage systems including seasonal storage; electrolysers including stacks; solar photovoltaics including inverters; industrial heat pumps; and innovative renewables (including geothermal and ocean energy).

The EIB’s deployment of a manufacturing guarantee mechanism for the wind industry and electricity grids proves the effectiveness of this instrument, which now needs to be expanded to other strategic cleantech sectors, and include both manufacturing guarantees and loan guarantees to ramp up manufacturing capacity. By doing so, the EIB would be delivering its climate bank mandate -a number one priority in its new Roadmap- by stepping for cleantech and innovative renewables where commercial banks have reached their lending limits, as these limits are not configured to match the speed and ambition of Europe’s energy transition.