European Investment Bank (EIB)
With a lending portfolio of over EUR 70 billion the European Investment Bank is one of the world’s biggest public lending institution – bigger even than the World Bank.
In spite of its crucial role in development finance – both within and outside the European Union – the EIB frequently neglects environmental and social aspects in its investments and has a strong aversion to share information with the public. Its staff is by far too small to monitor projects effectively.
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We believe that the billions of public money should work for people and the environment. Subscribe to our monthly newsletters to receive latest updates on the EIB and other public financial institutions.
We challenge the EIB to live up to its title “EU bank” and become a transparent and accountable institution that values real benefits for people and the environment as highly as lending volume.
LATEST UPDATE
EIB PROJECTS WE MONITOR
Belgrade incinerator public private partnership (PPP), Belgrade, Serbia
The planned Belgrade waste incinerator, being considered for financing by the EBRD, EIB and IFC, is incompatible with waste prevention and recycling targets and endangers the already precarious livelihoods of the 12,000 people waste-picking in the city. The project’s environmental and social impact assessment fails to resolve numerous issues.
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EBRD / EIB energy policy review
The European Investment Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development are both reviewing their energy sector lending policies. This is an opportunity to live up to their potential by combating climate change and promoting a sustainable future for all.
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Destructive hydropower in southeast Europe
International commercial and public banks have been bankrolling a wave of hydropower projects across Southeast Europe that have damaged pristine rivers, including in protected areas. These financiers need to take their share of the responsibility and stop financing projects in sensitive areas.
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LATEST UPDATES
Ahead of Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank meeting in Luxembourg, over 89 000 petition bank to drop Nenskra dam project in Georgia
Press release | 12 July, 2019Luxembourg, Prague, Tbilisi – Representatives from the “Stop Nenskra” campaign [1] showed up in Luxembourg at the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) annual meeting on July 12th and delivered a petition to the international development banks calling them on not to finance the Nenskra hydropower plant project [2] in Svaneti, Georgia.
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Racing against the clock: Kenyan villagers under imminent threat of eviction by project under EU’s bank’s appraisal
Blog entry | 19 June, 2019Today’s European Development Days forum in Brussels with its aspirational motto ‘building a world which leaves no one behind’ is an ironic backdrop to what is happening in the remote parts of Kenya, where a whole community is facing a threat of forced eviction by a project under appraisal of the EU’s own house bank. About a hundred people were demanded to abandon their homes by tomorrow – 20 June.
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New opportunities for eastern Europe if the EU’s bank ramps up climate ambition and quits fossil fuels
Blog entry | 13 June, 2019Ahead of the European Investment Bank’s annual governors’ meeting, several EU’s finance ministers put forward a joint non-paper “Climate for the future of Europe” with an idea to transform the EIB: make green financing its top priority and promote investments in energy and climate transition. The right initiative risks failing if not supported by the majority of the bank’s shareholders, in particular by the eastern states that wrongfully fear that EIB’s increasing ambition in climate finance will unfavorably impact the bank’s presence in their countries.
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This year the European Investment Bank is expected to review its 2013 ‘Screening and Assessment Criteria for Energy Projects’, also known as its Energy Lending Criteria, which governs the types of projects the bank can finance in the energy sector.
Our critique of the EIB
For decades the EIB has remained a closed and non-transparent institution, responding mainly to its clients, avoiding transparent and participatory decision-making and disregarding the views of those impacted by its actions.
In March 2016, the EIB adopted a new transparency policy that further weakened the bank’s transparency standards. It now can keep secret internal investigations into irregularities such as corruption and maladministration.
Read more:
EIB’s new transparency policy allows for more secrecy
Press release | March 11, 2017
Why transparency?
The right to information plays a crucial role in promoting participation and democratic accountability. It is an important tool to:
- better achieve lending goals,
- reduce corruption,
- identify potential social, environmental and economic benefits,
- avoid damaging communities and sensitive ecosystems.
We believe the EIB as an EU body, investing public money worldwide, needs to become truly transparent and accountable.
An adequate transparency for the EIB would include publishing all project related documents and taking stakeholders’ comments into account. It also would require the EIB to explain the reasons for supporting a particular project and how such support is related to its mission and to the goals of the European Union.
Read more:
A model transparency policy for the EIB (pdf)
Designed in 2009 by Bankwatch and Client Earth.
With a virtual elimination of its coal lending in 2013, not least thanks to Bankwatch’s campaigning, the EIB made an important contribution to limit global warming. But the bank’s energy and climate lending still undermines Europe’s ability to meet its climate targets under the Paris Agreement.
Especially in the new EU Member States where the need for climate action money is highest, only a small percentage of EIB loans support projects intended to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
In addition, the European Fund for Strategic Investment (EFSI), the guarantee mechanism rolled out by Commission President Juncker to attract private capital, failed to reach the 25 per cent climate action threshold set by the EIB. In 2016, 70 per cent of EFSI money for renewable energy projects went to a single country – Belgium – while 80 per cent of money for energy efficiency was earmarked for France, Finland and Germany.
Read more:
How Europe’s bank spends cash for climate undermines Paris commitments
Press release | May 22, 2017
EIB has been involved in some of the most destructive large-scale projects funded by international financial institutions (IFIs) in recent years. The Mopani copper mine in Zambia, the Mombasa-Mariakani road project in Kenya, Chad-Cameroon oil pipeline, the Lesotho Highlands water project, the Nam Theun II dam and other highly contentious projects have all been made possible through the provision of EIB loans.
The impacts of EIB projects outside of Europe show time and again that the bank is not equipped to safeguard the most vulnerable and uphold human rights against corporate interests.
