EIB social and environmental standards

EIB funded D8 motorway will cut through the “Ceske stredohori“ nature protected area.

With operations all over the world and a multi-billion euro loan portfolio, the EIB is one of the major financial players inside and outside the EU. However the EIB differs from other IFIs as it does not have clear or adequate environmental and social safeguards and procedures to guide its investments outside the EU. Nor does the EIB have sufficient expert capacity to properly assess and monitor its projects. Outside the EU this is a particular problem because the EIB relies on national legislation to guide its lending; yet national legislation in the countries outside the EU is often either weak or non-existent.

Within the EU the EIB claims to follow EU environmental legislation. However, here problems also arise as the EIB has only three environmental specialists assisting its engineers and economists and therefore it relies heavily on its clients when checking a project's environmental standards and its compliance with EU legislation. One crucial problem is that the EIB will often approve a project before an environmental impact assessment (EIA) of the proposed project is done, i.e. without knowing the project's full environmental impacts.

In its countries of operation outside the EU the EIB lacks specifics on what standards and safeguards to follow. Bankwatch believes the EIB needs to develop a clear set of environmental and social standards and safeguards that the EIB will apply when operating outside the EU.

For EIB operations within the EU, it must be clear that projects presented for the EIB Board's approval comply with EU environmental legislation and that a thorough EIA, involving public participation, has been done and that its results constitute part of the information necessary for the Board decision.

In November 2006, in conjunction with a number of international NGOs, CEE Bankwatch Network organised a conference on EIB accountability: "Right to Appeal" - International Financial Institutions and accountability - on the way to independent compliance and appeal mechanism for the European Investment Bank. The conference was attended by speakers and participants from the EIB and other IFIs, the EU institutions, independent researchers, NGOs and the media.