Courtesy of Mish.
British citizens seeking yet another reason to vote Brexit, have one in spades.
The roots of this reason go back to last year when European Commission president Jean Claude Juncker hatched a 3-year plan to leverage €20 billion in seed capital to produce a €300 billion gain in Eurozone investment.
As one might expected, the results are nonexistent even though Juncker has already used up the €20 billion in seed capital.
Juncker now wants to up the seed capital, make the plan permanent, and extend the plan outside the EU to immigration zones such as Syria and Africa!
Here’s the kicker. The UK ponied up the biggest share of this monstrous boondoggle so far.
UK Makes the Biggest Contribution to the Juncker Plan
Flashback July 17, 2015: EurActiv reports UK Makes the Biggest Contribution to the Juncker Plan.
The UK may be a Eurosceptic country, but it has made the biggest contribution to the flagship project of the Commission led by Jean-Claude Juncker – the €315 billion Investment Plan for Europe designed to stimulate the EU’s post-crisis economy.
The UK announced yesterday (16 July) it will contribute £6 billion (about €8.5 billion) to projects benefiting from finance by the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI),better known as the Juncker Plan. This is in fact the biggest contribution so far.
The plan is based on a 15-fold leverage of a limited €21 billion of initial public money. As Juncker explained, the fund will be called European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI), guaranteed with public money from the EU budget and the European Investment Bank (EIB). The Fund will be able to mobilize €315 billion over the next three years.
The Commission has put up €8 billion from the EU budget. This backs up a €16 billion guarantee given to the Fund. Topped up by another €5 billion from the EIB, the sum totals €21 billion.
In addition, the European Investment Bank (EIB) can give out loans of €63 billion. But private investors will be pitching in the remaining €252 billion.
Juncker warned about national wish-lists, and said there was no guarantee how much they would profit from the fund, if they contribute to it.
Brussels Extends the “Juncker Plan” Beyond 2018 and Outside the EU
