Ship finance

The Draghi Report estimates that the total investment needs to decarbonise international shipping will amount to 39 billion euros each year from 2031 until 2050. Together with the imperative to remain globally competitive, EU shipping will, therefore, have to gain access to an increasing flow of finance, under competitive terms.

This is particularly important for the non-corporate, SME-driven bulk/tramp segment, which by nature relies on asset-based lending and cannot easily access capital markets. For such companies, access to finance remains a structural challenge, as EU banks have drastically reduced their lending portfolios to the shipping sector in the past 15 years.

In this context, it is of utmost importance at the EU level to:

• Ensure that the revenues generated from the compliance of shipping companies with existing EU measures for as long as they apply, and the global IMO Net-Zero Framework will be directed back to the sector, focusing particularly on bridging the price gap between conventional and alternative fuels.
• Revitalise the EU ship finance ecosystem with enhanced traditional ship financing tools, such as bank lending, including potentially new financial instruments tailored to the specific needs of all shipping sectors and EU shipping SMEs.