Brussels, 10/03/2005 (Agence Europe) - The European Parliament has reached a more positive judgement of the activities of the European Investment Bank by adopting (573 votes to 25, and 23 abstentions) the report by Alain Lipietz (Greens/EFA, France) assessing the 2003 progress report of the financial institution. The Parliament has thus attenuated the criticism (which appeared in the press) on the subject of possible conflict of interest among members of the EIB management due to the fact they are involved at the head of large private concerns that could benefit from bank loans. The Parliament simply adopted an amendment welcoming the new internal codes of conduct for the EIB that could prevent this kind of problem.
The EP invites the EIB to actively pursue its support for implementation of the Lisbon strategy, mainly by approving specific rules defining the qualitative criteria for assessing projects submitted to it. Study of the results obtained would thus allow an evaluation to be made of the real contribution that the EIB makes to the Lisbon strategy. MEPs also suggest that the EIB should collaborate with the European Commission and the European Central Bank (ECB) in defining prudential rules allowing loans relating to the Lisbon strategy to be developed (infrastructure, research-development) “without compromising the sustainability of Member States' debt”.
The Parliament recognises the effect that EIB activity has on the growth of SME and on employment but invites the Bank to do more by improving the administrative structures for access by SMEs to venture capital and by promoting access by local and regional financial partners to its activities. MEPs call for a reduction of administrative charges imposed on SMEs and banks and argues in favour of lowering the threshold of financial projects through the “Innovation 2010” initiative. The EP also recommends that the EIB should give a better definition of the final criteria for allocating its “global loans”, in particular by setting a transparent procedure in place for verification and assessment of the use that has been made of them by intermediary banks. The aim would be to “verify that the quality of the loans is truly to the advantage of the end users”. The Parliament welcomes the development of EIB loans for small enterprises and invites it to extend this micro-credit policy to the social economy sector and to proximity services (that provide assistance to persons and aid to families).
During the debate, the rapporteur, Alain Lipietz, spoke of the “extraordinary progress” made in just five years in the quality of dialogue between the EIB and Parliament. At the same time, he felt one should no longer be content with speeches on the Lisbon and Gothenburg goals but “move forward toward achieving these goals”. The EIB must have criteria, quantitative indicators in dialogue with the EP, Lipietz stressed, also mentioning the need to find a way to control the destination of global loans to banks, which then distribute them to SMEs. “We could lose control over ensuring that these loans are adequate for the EU's objectives”, he warned. The Parliament also trusts that the EIB will approach the ECB to “fix deontological rules”, Alain Lipietz said, explaining that such rules would prevent “low cost, long term” loans to territorial authorities from “coming up against the limits of the Stability Pact”.
In response to Corien Wortmann-Kool (EPP-ED, Netherlands) on the question of prudential control, EIB President Philippe Maystadt explained that no international financial institution is subject to this kind of control for one very simple reason: the main aim of prudential control is to protect the depositors. International financial institutions do not have depositors. “Nonetheless, we remain open” on this issue, Mr Maystadt said, before going on to recall that the Parliament had suggested that the European Central Bank should supervise the EIB but that the Member States had refused to confer this power on the ECB. Mr Maystadt also pointed out that the EIB had, on a voluntary basis, decided to apply the new Basel II rules (adequacy of own funds).
On the subject of the EIB contribution to the Lisbon strategy, Philippe Maystadt recalled that, in the context of the Innovation 2010 (i2i) programme, the EIB has already signed loans for EUR 24 billion (7 for training, 10 for research and development and 7 for the diffusion of new technologies). He specified that the EIB had already, in the context of the “i2i” project, adopted new kinds of loans, with risk sharing, and that it was now working in collaboration with the Commission on formulas allowing to go still further along this road and to take more risks “as the nature of the areas involved require the party putting the funding forward to share part of the risk”. On the matter of global loans, the EIB continues negotiating contracts with intermediary banks to ensure that they do indeed pass on the financial advantages that “we grant to them” to the final beneficiary, Maystadt said.