Proposal for a Decision of the European Parliament and of the Council on granting an EU guarantee to the European Investment Bank against losses under financing operations supporting investment projects outside the Union

The European Union provides a budgetary guarantee to the European Investment Bank (EIB) covering risks of a sovereign and political nature in connection with its financing operations carried out outside the Union in support of the Union's external policy objectives. The EU guarantee for the EIB's external operations is an effective means to combine EU budgetary funds, through the provisioning of the Guarantee Fund for external actions, with EIB own resources. In addition, the EIB finances investment grade operations outside the Union at its own risk, as well as activities under specific mandates such as in ACP countries.

The need for an EU budget guarantee for the EIB's external operations stems from the Bank's obligation under its Statute to ensure adequate security for all its lending operations and, more broadly, from the need to safeguard the creditworthiness of the EIB and not compromise its task of contributing to the steady development of EU Member States. The EU guarantee has been the key instrument ensuring the compatibility between the EIB's financial structure, which is significantly more leveraged than other International Financial Institutions (IFIs), and the significantly higher inherent risk of lending to third countries, taking into account the need to avoid a deterioration of the Bank's AAA rating whilst limiting the EIB capital consumption. While the recently approved EIB capital increase would allow to increase EIB lending inside EU, EIB external activity should not be affected.

The proposed new decision will cover the EU guarantee for EIB external financing operations over the period beginning on 1 January 2014 and ending on 31 December 2020.

• Primary Source

EUR-Lex: COM(2013)293: Follow the progress of this proposal through the decision-making procedure http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/HIS/?uri=COM:2013:293:FIN

EUR-Lex: SWD(2013)178: Executive summary of the impact assessment http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=SWD:2013:178:FIN

EUR-Lex: SWD(2013)179: Impact assessment http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=SWD:2013:179:FIN

ESO: Background information: Commission moves to strengthen EIB lending outside the EU over the next seven years http://www.europeansources.info/record/press-release-commission-moves-to-strengthen-eib-lending-outside-the-eu-over-the-next-seven-years/

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