The European Investment Bank (EIB) has granted Aguas de Castilla-La Mancha, a public entity owned by the Castilla-La Mancha Region, a EUR 180 million loan to finance investment in the region’s wastewater treatment facilities. EIB Vice-President Carlos Costa and the Region’s Vice-President María Luisa Araújo signed the finance contract in Toledo (Spain).
At the signing ceremony the EIB Vice-President stressed that “by financing this project, the European Investment Bank is helping to renew key wastewater treatment facilities in the Castilla-La Mancha region, representing a step forward for environmental improvement and sustainable development in the region”. Vice-President Costa welcomed “the close cooperation between the different institutions involved, which made the work of the Bank’s staff easier”.
The Vice-President of the Region underlined the fact that the agreement would make it possible to press ahead with the programme of investment in the creation of water infrastructure being implemented in the region. The EIB funds will finance part of a package of schemes that will together constitute a EUR 1 053 million investment in Castilla-La Mancha’s municipalities under a commission awarded by the regional government to Aguas de Castilla-La Mancha last February.
The project forms part of the first phase of the Region’s 2008-2013 investment programme, including the rehabilitation, extension and construction of a number of wastewater treatment plants and sewerage interceptors and collectors. It comprises 61 schemes in five provinces and will enable the Region to comply with the EU urban wastewater directive as regards the quality of effluent discharged into receiving water bodies.
The EIB has been working with the Castilla-La Mancha Region for over 20 years, granting loans to finance important infrastructure such as Toledo hospital, now under construction, universities and schools, and roads construction and repair, as well as funding small businesses via the Finance Institute. Loans over the period have totalled some EUR 4 billion.
The EIB is the EU’s long-term financing institution promoting European objectives. Founded in 1957, it operates in the 27 EU Member States and over 130 other countries worldwide.
EIB financing operations are mounted in the framework of well-defined EU policies. An important area for the EIB is the water sector, where the Bank has financed projects spanning the whole water cycle, from reforestation and forest protection and the construction and upgrading of wastewater treatment plants to drinking water distribution. It also promotes improvement of the urban and natural environments by financing solid waste processing plants.