Ex post evaluation of financial instruments of the Economic Development Operational Programme

The European Commission launched a comprehensive ex post evaluation project on the take up and efficiency of the JEREMIE-type financial instruments (i.e. loans, guarantees and venture capital funds) during the 2007-2013 programming period. As the project showed, the repayable financial instruments work more efficiently than non-repayable grants in the field of SME development.

As member of the international consortium (led by t33, EPCR, and Metis) the Budapest Institute analysed the relevance, the take up and the cost-efficiency of the JEREMIE-type financial instruments (FI) and the appropriateness of the financial intermediaries involved in the implementation in Hungary.

In the first phase of the project, we collected and analysed programme monitoring data and reviewed the relevant evaluation studies and reports.

In the second phase we prepared an in-depth case study about the financial instruments of the Economic Development Operational Programme (EDOP 2007-2013) based on expert and stakeholder interviews, document and data analysis (see, final recipient level database provided by Venture Finance Hungary Plc).  

The final report summarising the results and the cost-efficiency of the FI measures across the EU Members States is available on the website of the European Commission. Chapter 6.10.9. of the final report shares the short version and the main conclusions of the Hungarian case study.

Following the international evaluation project, in 2016 we have updated the descriptive analysis of our assessment on the financial instruments used in Hungary based on the assignment from the Deloitte Zrt. Here we focused on the composition of the final beneficiaries (sectoral, company size, territorial distribution, etc.) and on the characteristics of the main financial instruments allocated to Hungarian firms.  Our analysis contributed to the ex post evalaution of the financial instruments implemented within the framework of the Economic Development Operational Programme (Századvég 2016. Evalatuion of Financial Instruments 2007-2013).