Strasbourg, 06/02/2002 (Agence Europe) - With the adoption of the report by Swedish Liberal Olle Schmidt on the progress report of the European Investment Bank in 2000 (see yesterday's EUROPE, p.15 and 2 February, p.13 for a summary of the report), the European Parliament said it was in favour of increasing the capital of the EIB and invited the governments of Member States to allow the Bank to face up to the increased demand as well as to its new mandates. It also (with an amendment by the Greens) hopes there will be a parallel increase in transparency policy, generalisation of access to documents by the public, as well as a definition of aims and performance indicators in order to facilitate the detailed assessment of the Bank's lending operations. In addition, the Parliament insists on the need to provide for prudential supervision of the EIB's activities and calls on the Council to "consider authorising the ECB to thus supervise the EIB, without prejudice to existing systems of national banking supervision".
During the debate, several MEPs - with Mr Schmidt at the fore - admitted that the EIB has over the past few years taken account of the criticism addressed to it, mainly with regard to transparency, aid to SMEs and the priority to be given to the environment. Swedish national Lisbeth Grönfeldt Bergman, speaking for the EPP, mainly hoped that candidate countries would be able to benefit more from the interventions of the Bank. Ieke van den Burg, from the Netherlands, said on behalf of the Socialist Group, on the subject of the possibility of prudential supervision of the EIB by the European Central Bank, that the latter seems to see this idea quite favourably, although it does hesitate somewhat because of the lack of personnel. Carlos Gasoliba I Böhm said on behalf of the Liberal Group that he mainly hoped the EIB's means would be fully used in favour of the Mediterranean countries (and Philippe Maystadt, President of the Bank, assured him of his availability), while, for the Greens, …/…
EP Plenary Session (continued)
Swedish national Inger Schörling insisted on action in favour of sustainable development. The spokesperson for the United Left/European Greens Left, Jonas Sjöstedt, from Sweden, felt that the World Bank takes better account than the EIB of the impact that the projects it finances have on the environment. He underlined the progress made by the European Investment Bank in this field, and said he agreed with prudential supervision on the part of the ECB.