Dieselgate at the EU's bank

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An investigation by OLAF, the EU’s anti-fraud office, has concluded that Volkswagen had misused a EUR 400 million loan from the European Investment Bank (EIB), Politico reported today, confirming concerns raised by CEE Bankwatch Network shortly after the Dieselgate scandal broke.

Yet, these revelations also warrant a closer look at the way the EIB, the world’s largest public lender, has failed in both preventing this fraud and responding to concerns about the involvement of its loans in the scandal after they emerged.

On August 2, at 3pm CET, we will hold an online media briefing, where Bankwatch’s EIB Policy Office Anna Roggenbuck will discuss the EIB’s role in the Dieselgate affair.

The briefing will be available on this page.

In September 2015, a Bankwatch analysis showed that between 2005 and 2015 the German carmaker had received EIB loans totalling over EUR 4 billion.

Since then Bankwatch, which has been monitoring the social and environmental impact of EU public finance since 1995, has been working to obtain additional information on the possible role of EIB loans in the Dieselgate affair.

Our findings so far suggest the EIB has demonstrated a particularly poor oversight on the way its multi-million euro loan was used, as well as a worrying lack of accountability despite its mandate as an EU public institution.

Questions can be sent throughout the briefing via Skype to ido.bwn, via Twitter to @ceebankwatch, via email to ido.liven@bankwatch.org, or as a comment at the bottom of the page