>@EIB

Peter Sedgwick, former Deputy Director in the Public Spending Directorate at the UK Treasury, started work this week as Vice President of the European Investment Bank. He has been appointed to succeed Sir Brian Unwin as the British member of the EIB's Management Committee.

Sir Brian Unwin, who was appointed on 1 April 1993 retired at the end of December 1999. Mr Sedgwick joins the EIB's Management Committee of nine members - the President and eight Vice-Presidents - appointed by the Bank's Board of Governors.

Mr Sedgwick, aged 56, joined the Treasury in 1969, in the Chief Economic Adviser's Sector. He was appointed Assistant Secretary in 1981 and then, in 1984, Under Secretary in the Finance Economic Unit. From 1986 to1990 he was Under Secretary in charge of the Macro Economic Assessments Group, and then became Head of the International Finance Group from 1990 to1994, responsible for Treasury policy on international economic and financial issues.

He served as Deputy Director from 1994, where he directed Treasury work on international employment policy. He was also responsible for the Treasury teams dealing with expenditure control and policy for the Government Departments of: Education and Employment; Environment, Transport and the Regions; Culture, Media and Sport; The Cabinet Office; the Houses of Parliament; Defence; Agriculture and a number of other smaller departments. As Deputy Director, he organised the G8 Employability Conference in 1998 and led the Treasury work on EU employment policy in the run-up to the Cardiff European Council, 1998.

Married with four children, Mr Sedgwick gained a Masters degree in Economics at Oxford University.

The EIB's Management Committee acts as the Bank's executive board. It oversees day-to-day business, recommends financial, management and lending policy decisions to the Board of Directors and ensures that these are implemented. One of the posts of EIB Vice-President is earmarked for each of the Bank's four main shareholders: France, German, Italy and the United Kingdom. A Vice-President's term of office is for six years.

Founded in 1958 by the Treaty of Rome, the European Investment Bank, the EU's long-term financing arm, is the world's leading multilateral development institution in terms of the volume of financing provided. It is also the foremost non-sovereign borrower on the capital markets, raising some EUR 30 billion a year. Its lending operations focus on both modernising the economies of the Member States of the European Union and fostering the development of countries outside the EU.