It’s good to see the European Investment Bank agreeing to invest in small and medium size Welsh businesses. The £75 million EIB fund will be matched with £60 million from the European Union’s Regional Development Fund. The five year programme will be managed by Finance Wales which can give loans or make investments in Welsh companies from £5,000 to £2 million. These are the very industries we must aggressively promote to get Wales out of Labour’s decades- long recession.
I and other Plaid members from the Assembly and Westminster met with EIB officials in the European parliament on 5th April 2005 to discuss how essential Welsh projects and enterprises could get at EIB funds especially, at that time, health services. You will remember that when Plaid suggested this, Labour said it couldn’t be done.
Anyway, the opportunity for EIB funding was built into the One Wales agreement: “We will explore options for a public sector investment agreement with the European Investment Bank”. Now, we see the actual delivery on that promise for the people of Wales. I’m pleased I was in parliament to help sort this out at the beginning. Sometimes it takes years for political initiatives to yield results but this scheme couldn’t be more urgently needed.
This shows what a difference Plaid can make. We believe in Wales dealing directly with Europe and exploring new ways to maximize investment in our own Welsh economy. See, it works!
