Date: 3 May 2023
Meeting with the Complaints mechanism
On 3 May Counter Balance and several members and partners of their network participated in a meeting with a significant number of staff of the EIBs Complaints mechanism of the European Investment Bank at their office in Luxembourg. The complaints mechanism presented its annual report and upcoming evolutions such as a change of management and an upcoming review of its policy and procedures. Counter Balance and the other present CSOs gave input on pending cases and gave constructive criticism and asked the mechanism to make more progress where needed. Based on these experiences the participants also gave the first input and discussed how the civil society wants the Complaints mechanism to improve. These points were noted and it was agreed to have further dialogue on the cases and when the review process starts.
Additionally, in the course of the first half of the year Counter Balance organised several meetings with advisors, assistants and MEPs from the BUDG, CONT, ECON and DEVE departments of the European Commission to give input on the annual reports or opinions on these reports these commissions were preparing on the EIB. We also had a meeting with the Commission on InvestEU and the EIB’s role in implementing this mechanism that plays a crucial role to finance the European Green Deal as well as the EIB’s own internal climate strategy, the Climate Bank Roadmap. All meetings took place in Brussels. The advocacy focused on increasing the banks’ efforts to eliminate the indirect exposure of the bank to financing fossil fuels via its counter parties and improving the focus of the bank to give sufficient importance to climate finance with high social benefits both inside and outside the EU and ensuring all citizens have access to environmentally basic public services like energy, transport and housing. Many of the points were included in the reports that were approved by the European Parliament and the Commission noted Counter Balance’s points on the need to better improve additionality of the financing of Invest EU and making more detailed information accessible to EU citizens.
