CNCE will transfer the EIB funds to the Caisses d’Epargne and its subsidiary, Banque Palatine (formerly Banque SanPaolo), which will onlend them to very small and micro firms.

Whole populations have had to pay, by being condemned to excess unemployment and poverty, for the irrational exuberance of financial operators or of the asset-holders they represent (The latter can be workers in industrialised countries contributing to a pension fund, buying an insurance product or relying on a savings bank to give them a return on their assets, great or small.) If in the final analysis everyone is a 'speculator' in their own way, the speculative decisions that really matter are at all events taken by professionals, who also wield power in other ways.

If you are a small pension fund and you have given the money to someone to manage and they have pooled it with a number of other small pension funds, you just do not have the time to think about influencing the behaviour of the corporations in which they have chosen to invest.

Ms. Gretchen Van Riesen: The average may be lower than that because you're dealing with small funds and large funds and you're getting an average, but in actual fact there are many funds.