When presenting the EIB’s annual results on Thursday 2 February, the President of the European Investment Bank (EIB), Werner Hoyer, called for further public guarantees from the Member States to enable the European Union Bank to continue its operations in Ukraine.
“It is clear we’d love to continue what we’ve been doing [in Ukraine], and more”, Hoyer said.
Since the outbreak of Russian aggression in Ukraine, the EIB has disbursed €1.7 billion to help finance emergency interventions to repair transport, energy, health and education infrastructures. As Ukraine is a candidate country for EU membership, instruments can also be put in place to facilitate the access of the Ukrainian economy to the European market, according to Markus Berndt, Deputy Director General of EIB Global.
In order to maintain its top AAA financial rating and to continue its high-risk operations in a country at war, as requested by the European Council last December, the EIB asked EU Finance Ministers in January for the Member States to renew their public guarantees, with existing guarantees fully mobilised.
The request is now on the table because the EIB did not want to “interfere” in discussions on the €18 billion macrofinancial assistance approved at the end of 2022 for Ukraine (see EUROPE 13082/2), Hoyer said, expressing “great optimism” that the EU would be able to reach a favourable outcome. As for the measures taken to prevent the EIB’s interventions from being misused, he assured that the Bank was doing its utmost to protect the integrity of the use of European funds, welcoming the recent initiatives taken by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to combat corruption at the highest political level.
Decisions on further state guarantees could be taken before the end of February, a source told EUROPE. A board meeting is scheduled for Wednesday 15 February.
Climate. According to its president, the EIB, which prides itself on being the ‘Climate Bank’, has exceeded its commitment to provide more than 50% of its total financing for climate change in 2022, i.e. €36.5 billion in loans out of a total of €72.5 billion. “We are on track” to meet the target of providing more than €1 trillion in ‘green’ transition loans by 2030 (see EUROPE 12600/37), Mr Hoyer said. And to accelerate the energy transition under the REPowerEU strategy, an additional €30 billion of loans will be used over the next five years.
It should be noted that, as an exception to its policy of not financing projects led by oil and gas companies, the EIB has developed a biofuels project in Spain with Repsol. It stresses that it only works on projects aimed at supporting the climate transition of companies that have developed a decarbonisation plan.
IRA. Asked about the EIB’s contribution to the European response to the US IRA (see EUROPE 13112/1), Mr Hoyer, whose term of office expires at the end of 2023, said the Bank wants to be part of this response as soon as the EU27 has agreed on its contours. He said that the huge investments needed in the net zero industry will come mainly from private capital and pointed to the EIB’s experience in leveraging private investment through the ‘Juncker’ investment plan and now the InvestEU programme.
“We have the technical expertise and experience”, he said, referring also to the Pan-European Guarantee Fund set up to support European businesses at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic (see EUROPE 12640/4).
More information on the EIB’s 2022 activities: https://aeur.eu/f/56l (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)