Manufacturing public investors: the financialization of EU structural policies through the search for “leverage effects”[La fabrique des investisseurs publics. La financiarisation des politiques structurelles européennes par la recherche d’« effets de levier »]

The increased use of "financial instruments" (loans, guarantees, shareholdings) in EU-led policymaking over the past ten years has become a growing research topic. This paper examines this phenomenon using an "internalist" approach to the financialisation of public policies, one which pays attention to the penetration of financial techniques, know-how and concepts within the daily practices of policy implementers. Taking the European structural funds as a case study of financialisation, the article underlines how this policy field has contributed to linking European integration to the mobilisation of private capital. To perform this linkage, officials from the European Commission or the European Investment Bank have invested in training local managers of EU funds to incorporate appropriate financial techniques and mindsets into their daily practices. This trend towards financialisation has shifted the focus and organisation of these EU funds from a logic of subsidy to one of investment.