Strasbourg, 05/02/2002 (Agence Europe) - During the debate on the report tabled by the Swedish Liberal, Olle Schmidt, on the activities of the European Investment Bank in 2002 (see summary in EUROPE of 2 February, p.13), the Bank's President Philippe Maystadt reaffirmed his willingness to report on the bank's activities to Parliament and, anticipating what he will say at a press conference on Thursday, said in particular that in 2001 the EIB financed projects in the field of the environment - one of Parliament's priorities - with 6 billion euro in individual loans and 2 billion in global loans, amounting to a fifth of the loans. The aim is for the loans for the environment to amount to a quarter of the total, he recalled. As for another concern of MEPs, he said that loans to SMEs had amounted to 800 million euro. Furthermore, in answer to the subject as to the priority attributed by the Spanish Presidency to co-operation with the Mediterranean, the former Belgian finance minister said that "the EIB is at the disposal of the Council and Commission if it is thought that it could make a contribution" in that field (the idea of a Euro-Mediterranean bank, which, according to Prodi, could be a subsidiary of the EIB: Ed.). Answering a question raised by the Chair of the EP's Economic and Monetary Committee, German Social-Democrat Christa Randzio-Plath, Mr. Maystadt acknowledged the "large imbalance" that existed in the Bank, where there is only one woman at the highest level, but announced the appointment of four women to "senior" levels.
The EIB "is striving to apply prudential rules", but if desired, is prepared to agree to an additional external control, said Maystadt in reply to MEPs. As for European Commissioner Pedro Solbes, he recalled that an audit system already existed, and wondered under what conditions such an additional control made nay sense. At the same time, Solbes recognised that the possibility of conferring such a control on the European Central Bank (which Parliament would like) existed in the statutes of the ECB.
EUROPE will return to the debate and the vote.