According to draft conclusions set to be adopted by the Ecofin Council on Thursday, 5 December, Member States are expected to reject option 2 of the ‘Wieser’ report— to create a mixed-ownership bank with the EIB, the EBRD, Member States, and the European Commission (see EUROPE 12344/10)—so as to streamline the European financial architecture for development.
Recognising that any institutional change to this architecture requires further reflection, the draft conclusions, which were dated 29 November and of which EUROPE received a copy, put forward the idea of launching an “independent feasibility study” in 2020 on the other two options being considered by the experts. Option 1 is to transfer the extra-EU operations of the EIB to the EBRD. Option 3 is to ask the EIB to establish a subsidiary for its extra-EU activities and to be a minority shareholder in it alongside the Member States, the European Commission, and national development banks.
In order to enable the EU Council to prepare the terms of reference, experts responsible for conducting the feasibility study, the EIB, and the EBRD have been asked to provide, between now and January 2020, information on concrete actions to maximise the impact of the current European financial architecture as well as the financial, legal, and operational implications of implementing options 1 or 3.
In the spring of 2020, the EU Council is expected to adopt the terms of reference for the feasibility study and is expecting to discuss the results of this study next fall.
The Ecofin Council is expected to list some immediate measures to be taken to optimise the European financial architecture for development, such as joint multi-annual planning among the players and measures to improve communication on European development successes. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)