On the occasion of its 50th year anniversary the Bank is aiming at adjusting its activities to the current model of economic growth for Greece. The aim is to balance lending between private and public sector, through larger sectoral diversification and the support of the rapidly expanding services sector.
A solid cooperation with commercial banks in Greece and South-East Europe, is essential especially in the present general economic context. This cooperation will be reinforced with new financing structures which will enable better access to SMEs as well as to major Greek industrial groups with presence in the neighbouring countries.
The cooperation with commercial banks will be valuable also in re-orientating PPP activities in Greece from the traditional infrastructure projects to PPP operations in other sectors where the Bank could provide its maximum of value-added in terms of its expertise and financial advantage.
The EIB, whose primary role is to promote regional development and European integration by its long-term lending, is giving special emphasis to the development and support of PPP's as an additional financial instrument to support capital investment in economic and social infrastructure. The EIB’s role is two-fold in this process of developing and financing PPPs. First, as the major specialist infrastructure financing institution within the European Union, it has a strong policy interest to facilitate greater investment in infrastructure by the private sector so as to meet the needs of the economy. Secondly, EIB is prepared to use its own considerable financial resources to expand, in co-operation with commercial banks, capital markets as well as private equity the resources available for infrastructure investment as well as social health, education and urban regeneration. A key to the intensive involvement to date of the EIB finance in PPP's has been the early integration of the Bank in developing the financing arrangements. The close co-operation between Government, public bodies and EIB, as well as EIB's extensive relationship with private promoters and the bank sector, has proved to be very important in bringing this about.
Further to its strong support for economic and social infrastructure, the EIB aims at developing its role in Greece as a substantial financier of research, development and innovation in addition to being an established financier of capital investment. This can be achieved by deploying a new range of EIB products also in Greece, and notably in cooperation with the commercial banks.
The European Investment Bank (EIB) is the long-term lending Bank of the European Union. Its task is to contribute towards the integration, balanced development and economic and social cohesion of the EU Member States. In 2008 the EIB celebrates its 50th anniversary and at the same time completes 45 years of activity in Greece. Since 1981 it has provided loans of over EUR 17 bn to viable and sound Greek projects and programmes, while the Greek portfolio of outstanding loans for investment projects amounts to roughly EUR 9 bn, of which some 70% were directed towards the infrastructure sector.