Jean-Claude Juncker, the European Commission’s new president, launched a plan aimed at enticing pension funds, insurance companies and other large investors to finance infrastructure projects across the European Union.

Juncker's investment plan, the centerpiece of his economic agenda, represents an ambitious but complicated bid to jolt the bloc's economy out of its doldrums. It is perhaps the only stimulus option that remains politically feasible when national governments are still tightening their belts and the European Central Bank has been slow to unroll new monetary stimulus programs.