This week, the European Investment Bank’s board of directors endorsed management’s proposal to create a new development branch for work beyond the European Union.
Despite lending €10.2 billion — 13% of its total financing — outside the bloc last year, EIB has long been criticized in development circles for being too risk-averse, having too few staff outside Luxembourg, and insufficiently consulting the European Commission in Brussels.
This week’s move is an attempt to address that, after three years of often bruising expert reports on the so-called European Financial Architecture for Development. That process ended in June, with guidance from EU states to the wholly-EU-owned EIB and the mixed-ownership European Bank for Reconstruction and Development to “maximize their development impact” without any additional costs.