The EIB: Fostering Recovery in an Uncertain World

Abstract

The European Investment Bank is Europe’s best kept secret. Although it is both the Bank of the European Union, owned by the 27 EU Member States, and has been operating since 1958, few EU citizens know it exists, and even fewer know that in almost 65 years the EIB has invested over €1.5 trillion for more than 14.400 investment projects, generating an overall investment of €4.8 trillion. The Oresund bridge between Denmark and Sweden, the Milhau viaduct in France, high-speed trains in Spain, solar farms in Italy and offshore windfarms in Germany… there is virtually not one large infrastructure project in the EU that has not benefited from EIB financing. The EIB is a unique institution with a lending capacity superior to that of the World Bank. It is a crowding-in bank that generally does not invest more than 30% of a given project and finances projects according to four main priorities: innovation, digital, and human capital; sustainable energy and natural resources; sustainable cities and regions; and SMEs. These projects are overwhelmingly in the EU: 90% of the projects the EIB supports are in EU countries. The EIB Group—made of the European Investment Bank and the European Investment Fund—is used to responding rapidly and efficiently to crises. This is what it did in 2008 during the subprime financial crisis, which was quickly followed by the European sovereign debt crisis, or when Europe was confronted to the migrant crisis, when the United Kingdom left the EU and the Bank lost one of its four major shareholders (with Germany, France, and Italy) and had to restructure its capital. Each time, the EIB Group took up the challenge by adapting, upscaling, and diversifying its instruments while cooperating with its many partners. It is no different today when the EIB Group is faced with the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine, while having to finance Europe’s transition to the ineluctable, indispensable, and urgent adaptation to a decarbonised society.