Introduction

Abstract

Infrastructure is high on the agenda as Europe faces an investment bottleneck. EU-28 investment in infrastructure has been declining by 11 % since 2010 to below €400 billion in 2013 (Roland Berger Strategy Consultants 2015). There is a considerable gap between actual investment and the amounts needed to keep European nations competitive economies by international standards. Standard & Poors (S&P 2015) estimates €1 trillion investment needs in the EU member states for the next 3 years. To meet the investment needs, the European Commission introduced the "European Fund for Strategic Investments" (EFSI), an ambitious plan to attract €240 billion private investment in Europe’s infrastructure between 2015 and 2017 (European Commission 2015). The EFSI is intended to give the traditionally publicly financed infrastructure sector access to the liquidity of international capital markets. Many of the about 2000 infrastructure projects submitted for the EFSI are large-45 % are larger than €100 million in volume and 9 % are even larger than €1 billion (Roland Berger Strategy Consultants 2015). As a result, many infrastructure projects need to be delivered in Europe in the near- to long-term future.