European Investment Bank

History

The European Investment Bank was founded in Brussels in 1958 when the Treaty of Rome came into force. It relocated to Luxembourg, its current headquarters, in 1968. By 1999, it had more than 1,000 staff members, a figure that had nearly doubled by 2012; when the EIB was founded in 1958 it had 66 employees.

The EIB Group was formed in 2000, comprising the EIB and the European Investment Fund (EIF), the EU's venture capital arm that provides finances and guarantees for small and medium enterprises (SMEs). The EIB is the EIF's majority shareholder, with 62% of the shares. In 2012, the EIB Institute was created, with the goal of promoting "European initiatives for the common good" in EU Member States and candidate and potential candidate countries, as well as EFTA nations.

The total subscribed capital of the Bank was EUR 232 billion in 2012. The capital of the EIB was virtually doubled between 2007 and 2009 in response to the crisis. The EU heads of government agreed to increase paid-in capital by EUR 10 billion in June 2012, with implementation expected in early 2013.

For the fiscal year 2011, EIB lent EUR 61 billion in various loan products, bringing total outstanding loans to EUR 395 billion; one-third higher than at the end of 2008. Nearly 90% of these were with EU member states with the remainder dispersed between around 150 "partner countries" (in southern and eastern Europe, the Mediterranean region, Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean and the Pacific). The bank uses its AAA credit rating and funds itself by raising equivalent amounts on the capital markets.

Mission

As the "Bank of the European Union", the EIB's mission is to make a difference to the future of Europe and its partners by supporting sound investments which further EU policy goals.

Although about 90 percent of projects financed by the EIB are based in EU member countries, the bank does fund projects in about 150 other countries—non-EU Southeastern European countries, Mediterranean partner countries, ACP countries, Asian and Latin American countries, the members of the Eastern Partnership and Russia. According to the EIB, it works in these countries to implement the financial pillar of the union's external cooperation and development policies by encouraging private sector development, infrastructure development, security of energy supply and environmental sustainability. In the wake of the 2014 Russian military intervention in Ukraine, the Council of the European Union instructed the EIB to suspend the signature of new financing operations in Russia.

Strategy

Operating strategy:

Lending strategy within the EU

Within the EU the EIB has six priority objectives:

Lending strategy outside the EU

Outside the EU the EIB's priority objectives for lending activity are:

When making loans outside the EU, the bank has lending mandates based on EU external cooperation and development policies, which differ from region to region.

1. Pre-Accession: Candidate and Potential Candidate countries in the Enlargement region (states which could possibly join the EU)
2. European Neighbourhood: Mediterranean Neighbourhood / Russia and Eastern Neighbours
3. Development: Africa, Pacific and Caribbean (ACP) / Republic of South Africa
4. Economic Cooperation: Asia and Latin America (ALA)

Within pre-accession countries, activities support both the EU priority lending objectives and the objectives of the external mandates.

Corporate policies

Transport Policy (renewed in 2011), Energy Policy (2012), Transparency Policy (latest renewal in 2015), Climate Strategy (2015), Governance at the EIB, Complaints Mechanism Policy (renewed in 2010), Anti-Fraud and Anti-Corruption Policy, Integrity Policy and Compliance Charter, Statement on Environmental and Social Principles and Standards, EIB Whistleblowing Policy, EIB Policy towards weakly regulated, non-transparent and uncooperative jurisdictions. As such, the European Investment Bank is currently represented in the Standard Committee of SuRe® – The Standard for Sustainable and Resilient Infrastructure, which is a global voluntary standard, developed by the Swiss Global Infrastructure Basel Foundation and the French bank Natixis, which integrates key criteria of sustainability and resilience into infrastructure development and upgrade.

Governance

The EIB is governed by the:

The EIB addresses complaints internally and the bank can also be referred to the European Ombudsman if concerns about maladministration persist.

Offices

The headquarters is situated at 100 Boulevard Konrad Adenauer in Kirchberg, Luxembourg. The building's first phase, now the West building, was designed by British architect Sir Denys Lasdun and is one of his few works outside the UK. An extension, the East building, was designed by Ingenhoven Architects, Düsseldorf. Covered by a glass roof that spans the entire structure, the extension adds 72,500 meters of office space.

The EIB has offices in the different EU countries, including Athens, Berlin, Brussels, Bucharest, Fort-de-France, Martinique (one of France's overseas departments); Dublin, Helsinki, Lisbon, London, Madrid, Paris, Rome, Sofia, Warsaw, Copenhagen and Vienna.

Outside of the EU, it has offices in Belgrade, Serbia; Kiev, Ukraine Ankara, Turkey; Beijing, China; Cairo, Egypt; Dakar, Senegal; Istanbul, Turkey; Nairobi, Kenya; Pretoria, South Africa; Rabat, Morocco; Sydney, Australia; and Tunis, Tunisia and Tbilisi, Georgia.

In 2007, the EIB opened a regional office in Helsinki, located at the headquarters of the Nordic Investment Bank (NIB), with the aim of enhancing the Bank's presence in the Baltic Sea region.

Presidents

The EIB president is the head of the Management Committee, a nine-member executive body that is responsible for the day-to-day operations of the EIB. They are "appointed by the EIB's Board of Governors, on a proposal from the board of directors", for a renewable six-year term. The President is also the chair of the board of directors.

The current EIB president is Werner Hoyer, a German politician with a doctorate in economics. He became president in January 2012.

Former presidents include:

Shareholders

The shareholders of the EIB are the 28 member states of the EU, while each state’s share in the EIB’s capital is based on its economic weight within the European Union (expressed in GDP) at the time of its accession. Shares of capital are following:

Active projects

Controversial projects

There are a few projects financed or under the appraisal procedure by the EIB that have raised objections from local communities as well as international and national NGOs. Such projects include the M10 motorway in Russia, the Gazela Bridge in Serbia, the Rača Bridge between Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, the D1 motorway in the Slovakia, Šoštanj Power Plant in Slovenia, the Bujagali Hydroelectric Power Station in Uganda

The Transparency Policy of the EIB has been criticised by NGOs. In 2004, Article 19 issued a memorandum in which it accused the EIB of failing to meet international (including EU) standards on openness. In 2010 the EIB updated its transparency policy.

A 2011 report accused the EIB of a lending policy that failed its responsibility to further the EU goal of cutting carbon emissions.

In 2014 11 NGOs demanded the release of an EIB report into allegations of tax fraud by Glencore in Zambia. Following a recommendation of the European Ombudsman the EIB released a summary which stated their investigation had been "non-conclusive". The Ombudsman subsequently called this summary inadequate and accused the EIB of failing to meet its own transparency policy.

Reports in 2010 and 2015, from a coalition of NGOs, implicated the EIB in tax avoidance by lending to businesses which use tax havens.