* Admissibility date reflects the date the case was officially registered. All other dates pertain to the date in which a stage was completed.
Case Description
Complaint
On 23 September 2014, the EIB Complaints Mechanism (EIB-CM) received a complaint concerning the implementation of the JEREMIE initiative in the Republic of Cyprus. In his message, the complainant alleged the unfair handling of his application for a loan within the framework of the JEREMIE initiative. He claimed that the EIB Group should set forth written and clear procedures for its financing programmes and that these should be accompanied by forms to fill in.
EIB-CM Action
As part of its inquiry, the EIB-CM reviewed existing information on the selection of Bank of Cyprus (BoC) for the implementation of the JEREMIE initiative in Cyprus as well as the leaflet/prospectus used by BoC to promote the financial instrument in its branches and a template of the Application Form that SMEs had to complete in order to apply for a loan under the JEREMIE initiative.
Conclusions and Recommendations
As the complainant specifically requested that his complaint be treated as confidential, the EIB-CM was not able to contact Bank of Cyprus to verify whether the delays and the lack of cooperation alleged by the complainant were truthful and unjustified. Therefore, this allegation of the complaint could not be fully investigated and verified by the EIB-CM. For the above-mentioned reasons, the EIB-CM focused its inquiry on the other issues raised by the complainant: the lack of "written clear procedures set forth by the EIB about its financing programmes" and the absence of an application form to apply for the loans in question.
From the review of the information gathered during the inquiry, it appears that the obligation to provide the public with information concerning the procedures for allocation of loans and the procedure/criteria for selecting the operations to be financed is set forth both by the applicable regulatory framework. Moreover, from a review of the call for expression of interest, it appears that BoC fulfilled its transparency obligation. In addition, EIB-CM’s inquiry has shown that BoC prepared application forms to be filled in by potential applicants. Such documents required the customer to provide the relevant information relating to the company/individual applying for the funds and the amount of the loan. Given the request to treat the complaint as confidential, the EIB-CM could not verify that in the Complainant’s case such procedure and application forms were respectively followed and used.
Based on the above, the EIB-CM acknowledges that BoC fulfilled the transparency requirements established by the applicable regulatory framework and laid down dedicated and clear procedures for the implementation of the JEREMIE initiative. As a result, the EIB-CM proceeds to close the file.