Brussels, 11/07/2006 (Agence Europe) - EU finance ministers on Tuesday held their first debate on a Commission proposal on the European Investment Bank's (EIB) external mandate for 2007-13. The Commission is planning on an increase in the amount of loans and a new geographical distribution, two elements on which the Council will have more detailed discussions in October. Some orientations will, however, be made on Tuesday.
During a public debate, the Netherlands and a number of other delegations (United Kingdom and Portugal for example) expressed a wish for greater complementarity with other international instruments and the World Bank. Several Member States have therefore appealed for a refocusing on the EU's neighbouring countries. Although the Netherlands clearly explained that it would be necessary to gradually get rid of the amounts available to Asia and Latin America rather than increase them, others formulated different preferences. Spain is, in effect, opposed to the Dutch proposal, believing that the mechanism should remain open to other regions in the world. Greece is hoping that support mainly goes to countries on the EU's periphery, as does Portugal and Poland. Estonia wants to give priority to candidate countries and neighbouring states. This idea is shared by Italy and Denmark, who also have their eyes turned to the east and south.
Although geographical concentration is needed, so too is sectoral focus, according to the Czech Republic, whereas Malta hopes that EIB interventions will focus on illegal immigration and Hungary hopes that they will help play a role in reducing the EU's energy dependency. Sweden was the only country to have considered the too high level of the amounts and criticise the imbalanced regional distribution prevailing in the Commission's proposal.