The EU’s financial arm, the European Investment Bank, and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) agreed on Monday to expand co-operation in countries outside the European Union where both financial institutions operate, Reuters reports.
“Our shareholders, the EU Member States, have called on us to develop a more effective partnership with the EBRD, and the agreement we signed today will allow our institutions to work better together in a complementary way,” the EIB President said. , Werner Hoyer.
European leaders were concerned about an overlap between the activities of the two financial institutions. Two years ago, a report by a group of experts led by Thomas Wieser, a senior EU official, proposed several options to avoid such an overlap.
The European Investment Bank (EIB) is the European Union’s long-term lending institution owned by its member states. It offers long-term financing for solid investments, in order to contribute to achieving the objectives of EU policy, according to Agerpres.ro.
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) was established in 1991 to invest in the former communist bloc states and help them make the transition to a market economy. The EBRD currently invests in 38 economies in Central and Eastern Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. To date, in Romania the EBRD has provided financing worth EUR 8.8 billion in over 460 projects.
