European Investment Bank plans internationally-focused offshoot
LONDON/BRUSSELS: Europe’s largest development bank, the EIB, has laid out plans for a new subsidiary focused solely on non-EU projects that it hopes could also keep some of Britain’s billions in the bank after Brexit, European Union sources said.
The outline of the new offshoot, which would initially focus on countries fuelling Europe’s migrant crisis and lend around 7-8 billion euros a year, was given to EU finance ministers at their meeting in Brussels on Tuesday, the sources told Reuters.
It aims to bring more of the EU’s international development spending into a streamlined and market-savvy unit that would also be able to work hand-in-hand with the EU’s various national development banks.
A working group will now be formed to provide a more thorough examination by early next year, so that it can be factored into the first round of discussions on the EU’s next 7-year spending cycle which starts in 2021.
“Nearly two- thirds of ( EU) member states spoke in the meeting and in principle the reaction was positive, i.e. let’s go on with the discussion,” said one source who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
“It is at the very early stage so they asked for more information... but the idea is that it will be a way to bundle Europe’s external development policy to make it more efficient than it is today.”
Two other sources confirmed the proposals and the plan to mainly work – initially at least – in countries at the source of the recent EU immigration flood. Build better infrastructure and creating jobs should help to boost the appeal of staying put.
“Consensus in EU countries is that one of the most effective ways to tackle the migration issues is to deal with it at the point of origin,” said a second EU source. — Reuters