The president of the European Investment Bank (EIB), Nadia Calviño, responded this Thursday with a message of caution to calls from the European Commission to take more risks and make a greater contribution to the Union’s political priorities, in line with the demands raised by some capitals, such as Paris, in the face of the new mandate. “It is time to roll up our sleeves and use the enormous potential of our largest bank,” “take more risks,” claimed the vice president of the Community Executive, Maroš Šef?ovi?, on the final day of the institution’s annual forum held this week in Luxembourg.
“The EIB has had a very important role in Europe, but it will have even more,” said Calviño in response to the message he distills from the debates of these days and the one he hopes the European Economy Ministers will convey to him when they meet. end of the month in Ghent, in favor of the bank “doing more.” The institution is committed to accompanying European political priorities but with a clear red line, its president stressed in a meeting with a small group of correspondents: the maintenance of its highest credit rating. “The protection of triple A is an absolute priority for us. Only with these strong solvency conditions can we have attractive financial conditions and be able to lend to states or companies under good conditions,” stressed the former vice president of the Spanish Government.
It has happened with all crises and the current one is no exception: when financing has to be found in Europe, all eyes turn to the EIB, the largest public bank in the world. “We are the Santa Claus of the EU,” joke sources from the institution, with a very conservative tradition. New programs emerged from the sovereign debt crisis so that the bank, which prides itself on having a non-performing loan ratio of only 0.5%, could also finance SMEs and contribute to economic recovery. From the Russian invasion of Ukraine came a greater commitment to R & D projects in defense but limited to dual-use technologies, without reviewing the veto to finance the production of weapons or ammunition. Now, given the magnitude of the challenges facing the EU – an energy transition that will require massive investments and the new security situation – voices are increasing calling for breaking down taboos, such as investing in the production of lethal military material and decisively supporting the nuclear energy.
This Thursday in Luxembourg, facing the new political cycle that will begin with the European elections in June, Šef?ovi?, vice president of the Commission, set three priority tasks for the new president of the EIB. First, create a division to advance projects in the critical commodities sector that “takes more risks than a normal bank,” she said. “Given its importance to Europe’s economic security, sometimes political considerations must come before benefits.” She also recommended the launch of a specific division to support the modernization of the European electricity grid and enable the European exchange of electricity produced by renewable sources. And finally, Šef?ovi? asked, “restore technological neutrality” and be “less dogmatic” when financing energy projects, opening the door to supporting nuclear sector projects that can help decarbonize the European economy.
“I am sure that these two issues, defense and nuclear energy, will be addressed in Ecofin” and, in parallel, by European leaders when they define the priorities of the next political cycle, commented Calviño without taking a position before listening. what the governments, owners of the EIB after all, propose. Especially contentious is the idea of ??financing defense projects, which countries such as France, Poland or Estonia defend but which, according to some specialists, could jeopardize the bank’s credit rating.
Calviño did not go into financial considerations but recalled that the program launched to finance R&D projects for dual-use technologies has 8,000 million euros and to date only 2,000 million have been spent. “There is room to do more, of course, but we always have to do it in the context of preserving our solvency and our very strong position, because it is the advantage we have to finance the European economy and that fundamental countercyclical nature from the macroeconomic point of view” .
