European Investment Bank (EIB)

With a lending portfolio of EUR 72 billion (2010) the European Investment Bank (EIB) is one of the world's biggest public lending institution – bigger even than the World Bank.

Jump to list of EIB projects

The EIB plays a crucial role in development finance – both within and outside the EU. But it frequently neglects environmental and social aspects in its investments, has a strong aversion to share information with the public and its staff is too small to monitor projects effectively.

Bankwatch is challenging the EIB to live up to its title “EU bank” and become a transparent and accountable institution – an institution that values real public benefits and positive environmental and social impacts as highly as lending volume and commercial viability.

Institutional background

As the financing institution of the European Union (EU), the EIB is an EU body and thus bound by EU policies and legislation. It provides loans to EU countries, about 140 partner countries and to private or public companies.

EIB in practice: Negative impacts on climate and well-being

Although the EU's bank, the EIB is eminently failing to support EU policy goals of tackling climate change and supporting sustainable development. Its lending in the important energy and transport sectors and specifically its lending outside the EU often has clearly negative, sometimes devastating impacts on the environment and on the well-being of affected communities.

EIB policy: Neglecting environmental and social standards

The EIB does not commit itself to a binding set of operational environmental and social policies. Time and again the EIB's billions have thus contributed to damaging impacts on people and their environment.

A public bank? The EIB's lack of transparency and participation

Despite slow improvements, the EIB remains the least transparent major public international financial institution. It takes decisions mostly solitarily without inviting or allowing others to be involved – not even those directly affected by its lending.

For more information contact our EIB campaign coordinator Anna Roggenbuck

Search EIB projects by

Gazela Bridge rehabilitation, Belgrade, Serbia

The resettlement of about 170 predominantly Roma families that lived below the Gazela Bridge in Belgrade, Serbia is part of a wider project for the reconstruction of a bridge across the River Sava. Although the project is backed by European public money, donor requirements to follow World Bank Group resettlement standards have for a long time been ignored by Belgrade City Council.

EBRD

EIB

Social & economic impacts

Southern Gas Corridor / Euro-Caspian Mega Pipeline

The Southern Gas Corridor, a system of mega-pipelines meant to bring gas from the Caspian region to Europe, is unnecessary in light of gas demand projections in the European Union's 2050 Energy Strategy. Neither will the project make European countries independent from Russian gas. At the same time, the USD 45 billion investments will boost Azerbaijan's dictatorial regime and cause damage to local communities and the environment in transit countries like Turkey and Italy.

EBRD

EIB

Commercial banks

ADB

Energy & climate

Social & economic impacts

Nenskra hydropower plant, Georgia

The Nenskra dam is the most advanced of Georgia's massive plans for hydropower installations in the Upper Svaneti region. It will deprive the local community of ethnic Svans of lands and livelihoods, but potential negative impacts have not been properly assessed.

EBRD

EIB

Export credit agencies

AIIB

ADB

Social & economic impacts

Mombasa-Mariakani road project, Kenya

Locals affected by the road project are facing forceful eviction and have not been properly consulted or compensated. The project promoter reacts to criticism with intimidation.

EIB

Transport

Social & economic impacts

Development

Olkaria geothermal development, Kenya

Financed by several development banks, geothermal installations have uprooted Maasai communities whose fundamental rights as an indigenous people have been ignored at first. The company has so far been slow and reluctant in addressing the Maasai's complaints.

EIB

World Bank Group

Social & economic impacts

Development

Sostanj lignite thermal power plant unit 6, Slovenia

Slovenia has built a new 600 MW unit at the Šoštanj lignite power plant (TEŠ6) which has turned out to be a financial disaster, as well as locking the country into a carbon-intensive future with tens of millions of annual losses for the next four decades.

EBRD

EIB

Energy & climate

European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI)

Tasked with stimulating the European economy, the new investment fund may just become an extention of the European Investment Bank’s normal lending with very limited additional (green) finance.

EIB

EU Funds

Energy & climate

Transport

Social & economic impacts

Plomin coal power plant, Croatia

Croatian plans to more than double the capacity of the Plomin coal power plant would have resulted in increased carbon-emissions for several decades. The project’s profitability was questionable and the plans were facing local opposition and conflicting regional legislation.

EBRD

EIB

Energy & climate

Volkswagen's emissions scandal and the European Investment Bank

With the spotlight bright on Volkswagen for cheating in emission tests, the EU's house bank must now come forward and show exactly what it has done to ensure proper oversight over its loans to the company.

EIB

Transport

Energy Union - torn between decarbonisation and fossil fuels

The vision of the European Commission's Energy Union proposes making Europe a world leader in renewables and energy efficiency, but at the same time emphasises investments undermining that goal, in particular massive gas infrastructure within Europe and to import gas from the Caspian region.

EU Funds

EIB