Strasbourg, 26/11/2002 (Agence Europe) - In a resolution made last week on the European Investment Bank' annual report for 2001, adopted on the basis of the report of Dutch Socialist Ieke van den Burg, the EP welcomed the decision of the EIB Council to increase its capital by 50% and send aid to victims of the floods. It also welcomed the role of the EIB in supporting the "Lisbon Process" but also made a request for an increase in investments in renewable energies, social infrastructure, housing, health and education. Requests were also made for a special programme to support social cohesion in accession candidate countries and other partner countries.
During the debate, EIB President, Philippe Maystadt, declared that employment was an important objective but should not be a criteria for choosing what projects were financed. He did agree, however, with Ms van den Berg that the EIB should ask for more funds from the Pensions funds. "We are looking of a formula that will enable us to get the Funds more interested", he indicated. He also gave assurances that the EIB would align its definition of SMEs on that of the European Commission, "but suitable methods for medium-sized enterprises still need to be found". In response to the request made in the resolution requesting that the next Intergovernmental Conference outline the rules for monitoring the EIB, Mr Maystadt said that the EIB was, "completely open to inspections by the Court of Auditors in the field of its Community competencies", whenever Community funds were used. On the other hand, when funds are raised directly from the markets, the EIB believes that inspections should be ensured bye a supervisory body from the banking sector. The EIB finds the debate on the creation of a financial supervisory body in this context interesting, explained Mr Maystadt. Questioned about the cases of fraud linked to aid to Lethoso, Mr Maystadt indicated that investigations carried out by the bank had shown that there was no fraud linked to its own funding. However, elements concerning other aspect of the projects had been sent to OLAF.