The EIB's decision to expand geographic coverage follows a request made at the EU's Eastern Partnership summit held in Prague in May: the summit's conclusions invited the EIB, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and other international financial institutions operating in the region to establish an appropriate joint small and medium-sized enterprise facility.
The Eastern Partnership is a new framework for cooperation between the European Union and Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine (see EurActiv 07/11/08).
Under a mandate provided by the European Parliament and Council of Ministers, the EIB is able to undertake activities in all countries except Belarus. The mandate makes available a total of €3.7 billion for lending in the period 2007-13.
"This is an important addition to the action we are taking with other international financial institutions to help stabilise lending to the real economy in Central and Eastern Europe," said EIB President Maystadt. "We hope to be able to conclude our first loan under the new facility before the end of the year," he added.
The EIB together with the World Bank and the EBRD committed in February to providing €24.5 billion in financial resources for banking systems and the real economy in Central and Eastern Europe. Of the total, the EIB pledged to provide nearly half, or €11 billion.
"We have moved swiftly to implement the joint action plan and now expect to exceed our 11 billion euro target," Maystadt said. "Up until today, we have signed loans totaling €6.3 billion and disbursed some €1.7 billion in credits to SMEs."
EIB intervention in Eastern Partnership countries has so far been limited to the transport, energy, telecommunications and environmental infrastructure sectors.
The new facility will enable the EIB to support via partner banks in the region investments by SMEs and energy and environmental projects costing up to €25 million. The EIB is already in talks with a number of state-owned development banks in the region, as well as EU banks with subsidiaries there, with a view to concluding the first loan agreements.
