The fi-compass Showcase Award 2019: celebrating the impact of financial instruments

For the first time this year, to celebrate the success of all practitioners working with ESIF financial instruments, ten stories that had been submitted to the fi-compass Showcase were presented at the flagship FI Campus event on 4 and 5 December 2019 in Brussels. During the event, participants were able to explore the stories and vote for their favourite.

The award ceremony that took place during the FI Campus closing session on Thursday, 5 December 2019 featured the three submissions that received the most votes:

• A video story from Slovakia about four innovative SMEs, submitted by the Slovak Investment Holding,

• A video story from Bulgaria about three urban development projects, submitted by the Sustainable Cities Fund (SCF) and the Bulgarian Fund for Sustainable Urban Development (FSUD),

• A video story from West Pomerania, Poland about the Old Slaughterhouse, submitted by the Westpomeranian Agency for Regional Development.

From left to right: Bruno Robino, Head of fi-compass, Peter Dittrich, Chief Investment Officer at the Slovak Investment Holding and Axel Badrichani, Deputy Head of Financial Instruments and International Financial Institutions Relations Unit, DG REGIO

Launched in early summer 2019, the main objective of the campaign was to highlight the positive impact of ESIF financial instruments on the ground. When asked to comment on how to build and learn from the success that they have had with using financial instruments, Peter Dittrich, Chief Investment Officer at the Slovak Investment Holding, advised to “be creative and brave because we’re dealing with something that’s still new in the EU”. Iva Petkova, Department Director at the Sustainable Cities Fund, Bulgaria mentioned the importance of the human aspect all along the project cycle whereas Robert Michalski, Chairman of the Board of the West Pomeranian Agency of Regional Development, Poland advised with humour “to carefully read the instructions.“

Simon Barnes, Director of Advisory Services at the EIB commented when opening the fi-compass event, “we are very pleased that we have received over 30 submissions. Whenever we launch new features like this, it can be hard to predict what the level of response will be. We are therefore very pleased to have received so many submissions of such high quality.”

From left to right, Bruno Robino, Head of fi-compass, Justyna Gąska, Department Director and Robert Michalski, Chairman of the Board both from the Westpomeranian Agency of Regional Development and Axel Badrichani, Deputy Head of Financial Instruments and International Financial Institutions Relations Unit, DG REGIO

The received projects videos were very diverse ranging from support to energy efficiency schemes for housing and commercial buildings, to a boat and yacht reservation portal and even a surfboard manufacturer. But most of all, the fi-compass Showcase shows that the finance mobilised by these tools makes a real difference to the individual final recipients and supports the delivery of the EU and Member States’ policy priorities.

Axel Badrichani, Deputy Head of Financial Instruments and International Financial Institutions Relations Unit, DG REGIO, Kiril Velitchkov, Director of European Projects and Financial Institutions, UBB, Iva Petkova, Director of the Fund for Sustainable Urban Development (FSUD), Nadia Dankinova, Executive Director, FSUD, Stoyan Stavrev, Bulgarian Consultancy Organization and Bruno Robino, Head of fi-compass

Launched in June this year, the participation in the fi-compass Showcase 2019 was open to all managing authorities, intermediate bodies, funds of funds, financial intermediaries, final recipients and any other stakeholders involved in financial instruments under all types of ESI Funds (ERDF, CF, ESF, EAFRD and EMFF). Stories could be submitted as a short video story, a photo story, a short article, a presentation or an infographic or poster. For a complete view on all the submissions, please visit the fi-compass Showcase page where the stories are currently being published. Further stories will be made available on this page in the following weeks.