The European Investment Bank will provide up to €350 million in counter-guarantees, with BNP Paribas committing an equivalent amount, to build a portfolio of bank guarantees of up to €700 million supporting new investment in energy grids across the European Union. The leverage generated is expected to stimulate up to €2.8 billion of investment in the real economy. The initiative is supported by the EU’s InvestEU programme.
The structure targets the supply chain rather than the projects: the guarantees expand BNP Paribas’s capacity to back European manufacturers of grid components — transformers, switchgear, cables — as they face surging order books from the energy transition. “Strengthening Europe’s electricity grids requires mobilising all players throughout the value chain,” said Rodolfe Vergeaud of BNP Paribas.
The deal sits inside the EIB’s €1.5 billion Pan-EU Power Grid package and follows a separate €1 billion wind-energy guarantee portfolio the two institutions signed in February 2025. EIB Vice-President Ambroise Fayolle noted the EIB Group invested €33 billion in energy worldwide in 2025, including €11.6 billion in grids and storage. It is public capital doing what it does best here: absorbing first-loss-style risk so private manufacturers can scale into a demand wave their balance sheets cannot fund alone.