The President of the European Investment Bank (EIB), Werner Hoyer, told MEPs that the bank “can and is ready to go greener” during a debate on “greening the EIB” on Wednesday 9 October in the European Parliament.
To this end, he explained that the EIB's approach for the coming years is based on three pillars: (1) increase the share of its finance dedicated to climate from 30% to 50% by 2050; (2) increase the amount of sustainable investment (public and private) from billions of euros to thousands of billions (‘trillions’); (3) align all of the bank’s financing activities with the objectives of the Paris Agreement, so that the positive environmental effects of financing green projects are not offset by financing “dirty stuff” such as fossil fuels.
Representing the European Commission, Carlos Moedas, Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation, said that the EIB could already be described as the “European Climate Bank”, given that it is currently “the largest multilateral provider of climate change financing in the world”. Nevertheless, he acknowledged that “much remains to be done”.
Reacting to Mr Moedas’ remarks, Bas Eickout (Greens/EFA, Netherlands) recalled the full support of environmentalists for the transformation of the EIB into a climate bank, but expressed concern that the Commission considers that this is already the case. Like José Gusmão (GUE/NGL, Portugal), he criticised the Commission for lack of consistency between its words and actions. “If you are serious about a climate bank, you should be serious about energy lending policies: zero financing for fossil fuels”, he insisted.
Similar thoughts were expressed by Aurore Lalucq (S&D, France), who described as “ecological nonsense” the fact that the second version of the EIB's project to end fossil fuel financing still allows, according to her, the financing of the gas industry in order to get out of coal. Taking up recent criticism addressed to the EIB by many NGOs (see EUROPE 12343/12), she regretted that the bank had thus “backpedalled [compared to a more ambitious first version], probably under pressure from the Commission, but also from the gas industries”.
Frenchman Pascal Canfin (Renew Europe) and Finn Sirpa Pietikäinen (EPP) welcomed the commitments made by Mr Hoyer. According to Mr Canfin, the EIB has the opportunity to set standards for the entire financial world by showing “what it means for a bank to be aligned with the Paris Agreement”. Like his colleague Jonás Fernández (S&D, Spain), he also stressed the importance of ensuring a just transition by providing more support, including funding, to those parts of Europe where the needs are “most acute”. (Original version in French by Damien Genicot)