Key takeaways:
- Secure, modern energy, transport, digital and industrial infrastructure is essential to Europe’s sovereignty, resilience and competitiveness.
- Public guarantees and risk-sharing mechanisms can mobilise private institutional capital at scale, reducing risk and helping complex infrastructure projects move from development to construction.
- Long-term infrastructure investors are critical to closing Europe’s financing gap, providing stable, long-duration funding for strategic assets, innovative companies and projects with long development timelines.
European sovereignty has moved from political aspiration to economic imperative: Europe must be able to act independently, secure critical resources, protect its citizens and compete without excessive reliance on external actors. Its core components include energy and digital security, defence and industrial capacity, resilient supply chains, access to critical raw materials, medicines and healthcare, and sustainable food and water systems.
Infrastructure is the foundation that connects these priorities. Europe must modernise power grids, reinforce transport and logistics networks, expand secure AI and digital capacity, and build more climate-resilient systems. These investments will strengthen connectivity, enable strategic production, support reindustrialisation and provide the physical assets needed to turn Europe’s sovereignty ambitions into lasting resilience, competitiveness and growth.
Financing Europe’s infrastructure ambitions
The scale of the challenge is immense. According to the European Commission’s presentation of the Draghi report, the EU requires an additional EUR750–800 billion in annual investment – equivalent to 4.4–4.7% of EU GDP at 2023 prices – to secure European competitiveness. Policy directions inspired by the Draghi and Letta reviews, along with financing initiatives such as the EU Sovereignty Bond Framework, are being put in place EU-wide.
Governments are responding with ambitious infrastructure plans. Germany has created a EUR500 billion fund to modernise energy, transport, digital infrastructure, education and hospitals while advancing climate neutrality. In Italy, the Recovery and Resilience Plan promises EUR225 billion in investments to modernise transport and digital infrastructure, accelerating the green transition and increasing circularity in waste, and generally enhancing its industrial competitiveness.
Following nationwide blackouts in 2025 and 2026, the Spanish government announced an increase in the investment cap for power grids, setting out plans to modernise the country’s digital infrastructure, rail network, electricity grid and transmission network, water infrastructure, and other major infrastructure projects.
Looking beyond the EU, the United Kingdom government set out its long-term industrial strategy in 2025 with a 10-year plan to modernise key sectors, including advanced manufacturing, defence, clean energy, life sciences, digital and technology, creative industries, and financial and professional services. In collaboration with Oxford Economics, BNP Paribas’ research experts estimate that the delivery of the plan necessitates around GBP345 billion in private capital investment over the next decade.
Public and private capital working hand-in hand
Over the next decade, large-scale infrastructure spending and the transition to a more sustainable energy system will require significant investment, creating a supercycle in capital expenditure across multiple sectors, industries and asset classes. While a handful of nations benefit from mature institutional frameworks to reduce risk and mobilise financing, public capital alone will not be sufficient to close this funding gap. As projects grow in scale, complexity and strategic importance, the role of long-term private capital in national, regional and supranational infrastructure plans increases concomitantly, making it crucial for Europe to meet its goals.
For private capital and institutional investors, the opportunity lies in the role that private capital can play in bridging financing gaps and ensure that early-stage projects reach procurement and construction. Global banking partners, like BNP Paribas, can support Europe’s ambitions by providing advisory and solutions across the full funding spectrum, leveraging global sector expertise and innovative capabilities, as well as providing access to institutional investors. BNP Paribas was named Europe Project Finance House of the Year in 2026 at The Asset’s Triple A Sustainable Infrastructure Awards 2026 and received 19 other distinctions recognising our clients’ transformative projects, reinforcing the Bank’s position as one of the world’s leading providers of financing advisory, structuring and solutions in this field.
❝ Europe’s infrastructure ambitions require patient, diversified and well-structured capital. Banks play a pivotal role in providing strategic advisory, mobilising financing, facilitating market access and connecting investors with Europe’s priorities.
By doing so, they help deliver the infrastructure that underpins Europe’s competitiveness, resilience and sovereignty. ❞
Structuring capital for complex, long-term projects
A pioneer in project, infrastructure and export finance going back to the Suez Canal and the Sydney Harbour Bridge, BNP Paribas has a strong track record in mobilising private capital to work alongside, and within, public financing frameworks. By understanding the risks associated with these assets and where public capital can be used to mobilise private finance, banks can provide investors greater predictability and facilitate long-term funding at scale.
The evolution of the export credit agency (ECA) product offering allows international banks to leverage public risk-sharing to mobilise private capital for strategic European infrastructure and strengthen Europe’s industrial and infrastructure sovereignty. In this model, international banks like BNP Paribas (#1 Global ECA Guaranteed Financing as Bookrunner and Mandated Lead Arranger in 2025) act as structurers and orchestrators, while ECAs provide public risk-bearing capacity that allows significantly more private capital to be mobilised.
Global ECA Guaranteed Financing as Bookrunner (FY 2025)
| Rank | Bookrunner | Deals | US$m | % share |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | BNP Paribas | 27 | 9,129 | 8.8 |
| 2 | 13 | 6,395 | 6.2 | |
| 3 | 17 | 5,836 | 5.6 | |
| 4 | 7 | 3,213 | 3.1 | |
| 5 | 8 | 2,652 | 2.6 |
Source: BNP Paribas as at 30/06/2026, Dealogic Cortex Export Finance Rankings, Full Year 2025.
BNP Paribas’ capabilities in project, infrastructure and export finance have earned industry recognition. Euromoney named it the 2026 World’s Best Investment Bank for Financing Solutions, citing its regulatory advice and innovative approach to the financing solution created for Sizewell C, a nuclear project comprising two Evolutionary Power Reactor units.
As the first large-scale nuclear project financed under the UK’s new Regulatory Asset Base model, the Sizewell (SZC) financing solution sets an important precedent for future long-term infrastructure and nuclear power financing. Leveraging its extensive expertise in the nuclear sector, export finance, capital markets and European-regulated utility financing, BNP Paribas’ advisory and sustainability teams accompanied SZC as the new regulatory standards evolved and created a novel financing solution, adapted to meet both the SZC specific project structure and the new regulatory framework. The GBP5 billion ECA-backed bank debt package and funding from the National Wealth Fund, will jointly finance the nuclear power station which is expected to deliver clean power equivalent to the needs of six million homes and around 7% of UK electricity demand.
Modernising Europe’s electricity grid with state guarantees
Modernising Europe’s energy infrastructure is a key priority in enabling the energy transition. While in the first half of 2026, power was the most active sector in the project finance loan market (BNP Paribas, LSEG Data & Analytics), a financing gap remains. Export finance – traditionally used to guarantee cross-border trade – can help bridge this gap. BNP Paribas’ Export Finance team has a strong track record of developing innovative financing structures in partnership with Export Credit Agencies (ECAs) and Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs).
One such example is the pioneering sustainable loan financing structure that BNP Paribas’ Export Finance team created for EnBW AG to support the company’s ambitious strategic investment programme. EnBW AG is a key player in driving Germany’s energy transition. By creating a new loan structure in the sustainable finance space, BNP Paribas and EnBW AG helped pave the way for broader use of ECA-backed untied SACE Push financing across Europe. BNP Paribas acted as SACE Coordinator, Bookrunner, MLA and SACE Agent, as the Bank formed part of a consortium which granted a 7-year EUR500m SACE-covered loan to EnBW AG, the first of its kind in Germany.
By helping establish new market standards for financing strategic and sustainable energy-transition projects demonstrates the Bank’s financing advisory, innovation and structuring expertise in export and infrastructure finance – capabilities recognised by IFR when it named the Bank Sustainable Finance House of the Year in 2025.
Partnering with long term capital to support innovative companies and long-maturity projects
Recent geopolitical volatility has reinforced the importance of patient, well diversified and long-term capital for high-impact early-stage ventures and infrastructure build-out – both vital to Europe’s competitiveness and long-term economic resilience. In the first half of 2026, global infrastructure investment rose 55% year-on-year to USD820.5 billion, with BNP Paribas ranking second as Global Loan Arranger by value.
❝ As infrastructure needs become larger, more complex and more strategic, BNP Paribas is supporting clients to access the right pools of long-term strategic capital, and structure financing solutions that diversify their risk and support Europe’s transition, connectivity and resilience. ❞
Growing demand for AI compute capacity is accelerating investment in data centres and digital infrastructure, with telecommunications investment doubling in the first half of 2026. Drawing on its longstanding relationships with insurance companies, pension and investment funds, private equity and infrastructure funds, BNP Paribas sector specialists, financing advisory and global research experts work with both specialist and generalist investors. Providing its clients with global sector views and advisory, the Bank connects its clients with investors across the full spectrum of private and public markets. BNP Paribas Equity Research expects the sector’s largest companies to invest around USD4 trillion by 2030.
At the most recent Choose France Summit hosted by President Macron, the investment fund Brookfield confirmed its commitment to invest EUR30 billion in AI-related infrastructure. BNP Paribas was one of the lead underwriters in Brookfield’s acquisition of the pan-European data-centre developer Data4. The Bank also supported the multi-billion euro refinancing of Data4’s European platform, opening up funds for further investment and development of its platform across Europe.
Multifaceted financing capacities and global connectivity
Confirming its multifaceted financing capacities, connectivity to a global pool of patient and long-term investors that can help meet the financing needs to secure European sovereignty, the Bank supported Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP Investments) and Equinix, a leading digital infrastructure player, in their acquisition of the pan-Nordic data centre platform atNorth. It acted on the EUR3.55 billion by financing, underwriting and structuring of this joint acquisition and future development plans for atNorth.
The European Parliament’s resolution on technological sovereignty and digital infrastructure, alongside its AI Continent Action Plan, aims to make the EU a global AI leader. BNP Paribas supports this ambition through its strength in financial advisory, sector expertise and innovation in financing solutions. The Bank recently secured EUR2.2 billion in long-term sustainability-linked debt financing for Eurofiber Group, a leading independent European connectivity provider operating open-access digital infrastructure. Working alongside Antin Infrastructure Partners and PGGM Investments, long-term shareholders of Eurofiber and leading infrastructure investment funds, BNP Paribas advised on the establishment of a Common Terms Agreement financing platform. The Bank acted as Joint Financial Advisor, Mandated Lead Arranger and Sustainability Coordinator.
❝ Working with bank and institutional capital to provide financing for national AI ambitions not only supports the development of a Europe-based digital infrastructure but also the creation of a European AI ecosystem, which by attracting talent supports local communities and jobs as well as creating significant capital deployment opportunities to European financiers and investors alike. ❞
Delivering across the ecosystem
Attesting to the Bank’s own commitment to innovation, driving sustainable growth and financing for Europe’s digital infrastructure sector, BNP Paribas operates across the innovation spectrum, from advising and financing innovative companies as they scale to unicorns and finding long-term financing to support their multi-year expansion. Understanding that support for the innovation ecosystems sometimes extends beyond financing and advisory, the Bank acts in a variety of roles, including co-investor, customer, adviser and financing partner.
Since 2023, the Bank has supported Mistral AI’s growth and its ambition to advance European AI autonomy, making BNP Paribas its longest-standing financial-services partner, integrating its solutions into the Bank’s own operations as it renewed its Groupwide agreement for another three years. Acting as bookrunner, MLA, modelling bank and hedge coordinator, the Bank played a leading role in the structuring and subsequent distribution of the company’s recent EUR830 million financing, supporting the acquisition of 13,824 NVIDIA GB300 graphics processing units (GPUs) hosted in a new data centre in Bruyères-le-Châtel.
The Bank also extended its partnership with the European Investment Fund under InvestEU, with the goal of providing in aggregate EUR325 million in uncapped guarantees to unlock growth capital for innovative European companies and strengthen competitiveness, attesting to its commitment to driving sustainable growth and financing for Europe’s digital infrastructure sector.
FAQ
Infrastructure is central to European sovereignty because it supports secure energy supplies, transport networks, digital capacity, and resilient supply chains. Modernising these systems can help Europe protect critical resources, strengthen strategic industries, and improve its long-term competitiveness and resilience.
Effective infrastructure financing requires governments, banks, and institutional investors to mobilise long-term private capital alongside public resources. Public guarantees, export credit agency support, and innovative financing structures can help reduce risk and advance complex projects.
Long term investors provide patient, well-diversified capital and funding for large infrastructure projects and innovative companies whose development may take several years. Sources include insurance companies, pension and investment funds, private equity, and infrastructure funds. This type of capital can support Europe’s long-term investment plans for its digital capacity, connectivity, and economic resilience.
BNP Paribas combines sector expertise, financial advisory and access to public and private investors to support strategic infrastructure. Its activities span energy grids, nuclear power, digital connectivity, data centres, and innovative European companies, helping mobilise capital for Europe’s transition and long-term growth.
