The European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI), commonly known as the ‘Juncker Plan’ after the current head of the European Commission, has already raised €335 billion since it was launched in 2015.

According to what the European Commission and the European Investment Bank announced on Wednesday, the fund that provides liquidity to entrepreneurs within the bloc in the form of EU guarantees on private investment initially aimed to raise €315 billion. According to Wednesday’s numbers, the fund is now expected to reach €350 billion by 2020, creating 1.4 million jobs and boosting the bloc’s GDP by 1.3%.

“We have financed projects which without the EFSI would not have been possible, and all without creating new debt: two-thirds of the investment comes from the private sector,”European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said.

European Investment Bank (EIB) President Werner Hoyer tipped his hat to Juncker’s decision to go ahead with what others told him would be a failure as the programme has changed the DNA of the EIB”. “The Juncker Plan is now seen as a winner and there is no going back,” the Luxembourg-based Hoyer said, adding “we now have the key to making scarce public resources achieve more for Europe’s economy and for its citizens via private investment”.

According to the Commission, the largest beneficiaries amongst the Member States, relative to their GDP, are Greece, Estonia, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Finland, Poland, Spain, Portugal, Latvia, and Italy.