EU bank steps up efforts to fight climate change and foster innovation

In the year of its 60th anniversary, the EU bank supported EUR 230 billion of investment, meeting its Juncker Plan targets ahead of schedule and successfully navigating a politically difficult environment. Shifting its focus from Europe’s economic recovery to competitiveness, the European Investment Bank (EIB) Group zoomed in on market gaps identified by its experts, so that its investments would have the biggest impact on Europe’s economy.

“Digitalisation, SMEs, education and skills, sustainable energy and the modernisation of infrastructure are crucial for the European economy to keep pace with global competition,” EIB President Werner Hoyer said at the EIB Group’s annual press conference on Tuesday in Brussels.

Intensifying climate action

Climate action is another area in which the EIB Group is instrumental in delivering on EU policy goals. The EIB remains the world’s largest multilateral financier of climate action projects. In 2018, the EU bank increased the proportion of its lending that goes towards combating climate change to close to 30%. The EIB has also just started an energy lending review to adapt its policy to a changing environment. A three-month public consultation with industry, civil society groups and policymakers is underway.

Supporting innovative companies

The EIB Group covers the full spectrum of financing for innovative companies in the EU. It is the biggest provider of risk capital for start-ups through investments in venture capital funds, it offers equity and venture debt for growing companies that need to scale up, and it finances research and development programmes that allow medium-sized and bigger companies to remain competitive on global markets. Despite the dip in overall lending, the EU bank invested almost as much in innovation as in the preceding year – EUR 13.52 billion.

374 000 SMEs benefited from EIB Group financing last year, intermediated through financial partners.

Mobilising private capital to achieve environmental and social goals worldwide

The EU bank was instrumental in creating the EUR 450 billion green bond market. It issued the first of these bonds eleven years ago and played a key role in setting the standards for this investment category. Last year, the EIB issued its first Sustainability Awareness Bond, raising EUR 500 million for investments to meet the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. The proceeds from the first bond will mainly be invested in water projects. This year, the EIB plans to issue further bonds for investments towards meeting the Sustainable Development Goals, notably in the areas of healthcare and education.

Money raised on the capital markets is used by the EIB to improve the living conditions of people all over the world. Lending outside the EU rose to EUR 8.1 billion in 2018. A record sum of EUR 1.6 billion went to projects in sub-Saharan Africa.

“We are ready to do more and support a shift in development policy from aid to investment and from a donor-recipient relationship to partnership,” Hoyer confirmed.

Original source: EIB
Published on 29 January 2019