Long-Term Financing of the European Economy

 stresses that the conditions for financing of the real economy are fundamentally reshaped by the on-going financial, economic and social crisis. Against this backdrop, the public and private long- term investments are increasingly complementary. Indeed, public investment is not only a stimulus for private investment but constitutes most often a prerequisite for setting the appropriate structural conditions of a regional economy and plays a role as an automatic stabilizer, that is to say a countercyclical buffer in times of negative economic conditions;

 feels that regional and municipal banks could play a special role in some Member States in relation to long-term financing, as they have the best knowledge of a given region's economy, and are often in a position to pursue effective and efficient long-term economic financing policies in that region;

 feels that pension funds are the most strongly predisposed to invest resources long-term given that they have long-term liabilities to meet; encourages EU, national and regional institutions to establish guarantee schemes in order to reduce risks and encourage investors to use pension and insurance scheme resources for long-term financing;

 encourages local and regional authorities to carry out structural investments with yields sufficiently high to make cooperation on infrastructure project implementation attractive for infrastructure investment funds.