Scholarly record

FINANCIAL INSTRUMENTS AS AN ALTERNATIVE FORM OF ASSISTANCE FROM THE EUROPEAN STRUCTURAL AND INVESTMENT FUNDS AND THEIR IMPLEMENTATION UNDER THE CONDITIONS OF THE SLOVAK REPUBLIC

Boris Mucha, T. Peracek, P. Brestovanska

Abstract

Financial instruments are one way of providing assistance from the European Structural and Investment Funds. They support investments that are expected to be financially viable but have insufficient funding from market sources. They may take the form of capital investments, loans, guarantees or other risk-sharing instruments. Unlike grants, they represent a return form of assistance through them the final beneficiary can access the financing of economic activities on preferential terms. The specificity of financial instruments is the fact that private capital or financial institutions, such as the European Investment Bank or the European Investment Fund, are mainly involved. The main advantage of using financial instruments is their return nature, which makes it possible to use the allocated funds repeatedly, which multiplies their potential effect. This achieves a leverage effect that allows the use of funds from other sources. Supporting activities in this form does not effectively subsidize the economic results of the activities, so that the resources used are used more efficiently and purposefully. As private sector expertise is used in the allocation of financial instruments, there is less market distortion compared to recoverable aid, mainly due to the limited public sector capacity in many areas of economic activity. The aim of this contribution is to examine and identify financial instruments as a means of repayable assistance from the European Structural and Investment Funds under the conditions of the Slovak Republic in the programming period 2014-2020.

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