Global Trade Alert

 On 2 February 2016, the European Investment Bank agreed to provide 200 million EUR for the purchase of ten new car/truck vessels by Grimaldi Euromed SpA, as part of the European Fund for Strategic Investments (henceforth: EFSI).
The vessels shall be used on the company's routes between Europe and North America.
EFSI support does not fall under EU State Aid rules as it is meant as a tool to address "market failures or sub-optimal investment situations". However, the investment support does include favourable conditions in the form of public assumption of risk.
As described in the European Commission's Fact Sheet form 20 July 2015: "The type of risk-financing instruments will be designed so as to take uncertainty out ("first loss protection") of as such viable projects and therefore crowd-in private sector investments. Since the EFSI will take riskier tranches in investment projects, the private sector will be able to join under more favourable conditions." Furthermore, the EIB states that "The new initiative 'i.e. the EFSI' will benefit from the EIB's strong credit standing that enables funding at favourable conditions and across maturities".
A state measure in the GTA database is assessed solely in terms of the extent to which its implementation affects foreign commercial interests. On this metric, the investment support proposed here is discriminatory.