President Calviño: Europe delivers

Dear Governors, dear Ministers and friends,

Members of the Audit Committee and the Board of Directors,

Dear colleagues,

I want to start today’s meeting by thanking you all for your strong support of our work.

Your backing, together with the dedication and the commitment of our Management Committee, the Vice-Presidents, and our staff, has enabled the EIB Group to deliver record financing for projects to build a stronger Europe in a more sustainable, more peaceful world.

A year ago, after extensive engagement as you signalled, I did visit the 27 Member States, I listened carefully to our shareholders and other stakeholders. After extensive consultation we agreed together a Strategic Roadmap to focus the EIB Group on eight strategic priorities.

And, I have to say, we are walking the talk.

You have unanimously agreed to an increase of our gearing ratio limit, which empowers the EIB Group to increase operations.

Furthermore, we have been working very well with the European Commission to optimise the use of guarantees from the EU budget, both inside and outside the EU. We have made very good progress on that front, so we expect this optimisation effort to unlock an extra 8 billion euros in EU budget guarantees so we can cope with extra risk-taking and mobilise over 75 billion euros more in investments inside and outside the EU within the current budgetary framework.

This extra headroom has enabled our Directors to approve yesterday an increase of the ceiling of EIB Group operations in 2025 to a record 100 billion euros, stepping up our financing in three key priority areas for Europe: Energy grids, Security and defence and Technological leadership.

 

1. Climate Bank 

Our first priority, in the Strategic Roadmap, is consolidating our role as the Climate Bank.

This is a no-brainer. It is not only the right thing to do, but also the smart thing to do for our economies, for our planet, to reduce energy bills for companies and citizens.

The European Investment Bank is already financing about 40% of ongoing projects to reinforce energy grids and interconnectors, including transmission network upgrades in Belgium, Czechia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Slovenia and indeed, in all Member States, really.

Earlier this week, we signed 1.6 billion euros in financing for the underwater electricity interconnector between Spain and France that will strengthen Europe’s grid stability and resilience.

And our intention is to increase grid and storage capacity financing to a record of more than 11 billion euros this year.

So, this is key to make the European Union a success in terms of the green transition. And for this we need infrastructure but we also need technological leadership, which brings me to the second priority area: digitalisation and technological innovation.

 

2.   Digitalisation and technological innovation

We have just approved the launch of the biggest-ever financing programme for innovation in Europe to mobilise 250 billion euros in investments by 2027 in digitalisation and technological innovation. We call it TechEU and it is complementing and well coordinated with the Commission’s proposals in this area. Our first wave of instruments in TechEU is precisely focusing on CleanTech, including

A top up of the very successful guarantee programme we have for wind energy production.

The launch of three new instruments:

• To support the supply chain of electricity grid components,
• To facilitate Power Purchase Agreements to stabilise prices for energy intensive users,
• And also to provide new guarantees to cover the investment and working capital needs of Cleantech innovators.

This CleanTechEU is I think extremely timely because in the current geopolitical context, it is of the essence that Europe retains its leadership in this area.

We have recently announced some flagship initiatives in Germany and Sweden that give a sense of what this clean tech initiative is about.

Beyond cleantech, the new TechEU platform has one key objective: to support Europe’s innovators so that they can scale up here in the EU. That ideas, technologies and companies that are born in the EU can grow and prosper in Europe.  

The European Investment Bank Group is already Europe’s biggest venture capital financier, through the European Investment Fund, a position we consolidated with record equity and quasi-equity investments and higher risk activities last year. And complementing the Commission’s ScaleUp Europe fund, we are also leveraging other EU budget instruments, like InvestEU, to provide a full palette of tools to companies throughout the innovation of the business cycle in areas such as artificial intelligence, robotics, semiconductors, health tech, clean tech, defence tech and critical raw materials.

Our aim with TechEU, is to support 1 000 more European innovators and tech champions with equity capital and quasi equity capital every year, in addition to the more than 3,000 who already benefit from our support.

TechEU should be bigger, faster and simpler than anything we've seen before, with larger tickets— investment tickets—reducing delivery times to 6 months and cutting down red tape for companies.

Just a word, you mentioned critical raw materials in your introduction, just a word to also signal the launch of our EIB Group Critical Raw Material Initiative, which will enhance our financing capacity throughout the whole value chain in this key area for Europe’s competitiveness.

 

3. Security and defence  

The third priority, security and defence, is perhaps the area where we have seen the biggest progress in the last year and the biggest example of the EIB swiftly responding to new geopolitical realities and European policies.

 As you know well, we have:

• Simplified our internal procedures and set up a one-stop-shop for investors and industry players
• We have deepened our partnerships with key stakeholders— the European Defence Agency, Nato, national promotional banks
• We have gone on a roadshow throughout the 27  Member States, engaging very actively with defence ministries, finance ministries, also with industry players and financial players.
• We have incorporated security and defence into our public policy goals, so that it is part of the permanent core policy priorities of the EIB Group and there is no predetermined absolute ceiling for financing in this area.
• And we have expanded our eligibilities. First, last year we expanded  to a broader definition of dual-use and then this year we have further expanded it into pure defence, to fill market gaps with our financing.

And the result is already very clear: we doubled in 2024 our financing in this area to 1 billion euro and we are going to more than triple this again to around 3.5% of our total financing already in 2025.

We have a solid pipeline of 80 projects contributing to Europe’s security and defence capabilities, including 32 flagship operations for potential approval over in the coming months, in five key areas:

(i)           Large critical infrastructures

Just yesterday, our Board of Directors approved the financing of the very well-known military base in Lithuania to host a German Bundeswehr brigade and we are moving fast in providing technical support for setting up the public private partnership and launching the procurement process.

(ii)         Second area: industrial capabilities

We have, for example, recently financed helicopters for the Italian armed forces, we’re working on projects such as repair centres for land and aerial vehicles and drone manufacturing capacity too.

(iii)        Third area: Research & development of new technologies
Supporting companies in Luxembourg, Germany, to Spain, that are very active in the area of space, satellites, robotic platforms, drones…

(iv)      Fourth area: Supporting SMEs in the supply chain of Europe’s contractors

We have increased to 3 billion euros the dedicated envelope to intermediated finance to be a channeled to Europe’s financial sector to the SMEs in the supply chain and we have already signed the first two important deals, with Deutsche Bank and the Banque Populaire Caisse D’Epargne. I would like to highlight that these large pan-European banks will provide liquidity at European level. So they will provide within countries of operation different from their headquarters.

(v)         And the fifth area where we are very active is supporting, as anchor investors, the emerging ecosystem of dedicated private investment funds.

The European Investment Fund has already invested into three funds that will be, on their side, investing in companies in the area of security and defence technologies, innovative companies, including an important one based in the Netherlands.

One final word on geographic coverage in our security and defence support: All in all, our security and defence pipeline includes projects across 16 member states already, and we are actively expanding further our geographical coverage. So, don’t hesitate to contact the teams or encourage private operators to do so, so that we can make sure that we are reaching each and every country in Europe, that we are bringing up all the available capabilities, because it is really important that we build, not national, but European capabilities in the area of security and defence. And this also involves, requires good coordination with other financing instruments. So we are in very close contact, we work very closely with the European Commission on how best to articulate the new instrument, SAFE, to complement the activities that we are already financing from the European Investment Bank, and also how to foster standardisation, interoperability, so that our investments are really efficient at making a difference on the ground.

In that regard, we have also signed a memorandum of understanding with Europe’s five largest national promotional banks a couple of weeks ago, so that we can also rally, bring together, all our financing capacity and the pipeline of projects to the benefit of Europe’s own capacities.

 

Very briefly, let me refer to the other five strategic priorities.

4.  Territorial cohesion

Territorial cohesion is a founding pillar of European integration.

The EIB Group hit a record last year and we expect to reach a new high in 2025, with almost half of the EIB Group financing inside the EU going to projects in cohesion regions, from university facilities in Bulgaria—and I have had the chance to visit our local offices on the ground and see the important work they’re doing in the regions. SME financing in less-developed areas of Portugal and Slovakia… all around the EU we are supporting the cohesion objective.

And, as you know, the EIB Group now has opened a local office in each and every one of the Member States. In the last year we opened offices in Cyprus, Estonia, Latvia, and Malta. So we are actually the only local bank for the whole of Europe with operations and projects in every region of our Union, bringing financing where talent is, bringing opportunity where talent is.

 

5. Agriculture and the bioeconomy

Moving to agriculture and the bioeconomy, we have launched our largest-ever programme, a 3 billion euro facility to cover financing gaps for small businesses, young farmers and women.  This has been very, very much welcomed by the sector.

We have been working very closely with the Commission, we have been also doing a tour in the different Member States, for instance with Vice-President Fayolle was in France. And on top of this direct financing we are working together with the European Central Bank and EIOPA to see how we could support agricultural insurance and other de-risking schemes in a sector which is at the forefront of the impact of climate change.  

And of course we are also contributing to the water resilience strategy. The EIB is already the largest global investor in the blue economy, and we are launching a 15 billion euro water investment programme up to 2027, providing clean water in Europe and beyond, supporting farmers, households and businesses as well as resilience to droughts and floods.

 

6. Social infrastructure

The sixth investment priority we agreed to was financing for the social infrastructure that underpins the European way of life – for example with new hospitals in Finland.

And I was lucky enough to visit every Member State, as I mentioned, and to see how housing is a shared challenge in all countries, you know, from Ireland to Cyprus, really and so we are also working very intensely with key stakeholders and the European Commission on a dedicated platform to foster investment in three areas: innovation - new materials, new building techniques; renovation - retrofitting and energy efficiency of the existing stock; and new builds – through public-private partnerships to build better and more affordable homes.

We are financing projects for housing, and for accommodation of students or public sector workers - such as nurses, teachers, and police officers - in Austria, Croatia, Czechia, Greece, Lithuania, Ireland, Portugal, Romania and Spain.

I would really like to draw your attention to the first area: innovation. Because there has been a very significant price increase of building materials, of the building process. And so if we also bring our forces together, we can have a more efficient industry in the area of construction that can bring those prices down and thus make housing more affordable throughout the EU.

 

7. Our activities outside the EU

The seventh investment priority is to focus on impact in our activities outside the EU. In July, we will discuss with our Board of Directors a new EIB global strategy to respond to ongoing geopolitical challenges. And there are five important features I'd like to leave with you, because the EIB Group is in a unique position right now and I see it every day.

• We have a double hat as the EU financing arm and a member of the multilateral development bank family, which brings important elements to us, including the preferred creditor status.
• Our shareholding is purely EU and it means that words like climate, gender, women, development, can be in our active action plan. These are European values and the situation... I'm going to be very diplomatic here... the situation is extremely different in the rest of multilateral development community, due to the different shareholding that they have.
• We have a strong financial position, consistent profitability, around 3 billion euros last year, and a strong triple A rating that allows us to scale up without a capital increase.

Building on these features, we are becoming more innovative by the day to respond to Europe’s needs. For example, I mentioned last night, we have  launched an innovative pan-European export credit guarantee for companies exporting to Ukraine. We already signed a deal with the Danish and approved the operation with the German Export Credit Agency. We have 11 more signatures to come and we expect to have a big batch of signatures at the upcoming Rome-Ukraine Recovery Conference in July.

As I said earlier, I encourage you to talk to the National Export Credit Agency so that we have a big batch of signatures in Rome.

And building on this pilot, we are exploring a new pan-European trade and investment booster. We have reached cruising speed now in our operations in Ukraine, but last night we had a detailed discussion of all of these elements. And we are going to play an important role in the upcoming UN fourth international conference for finance and for development, in Sevilla. We are trying to mobilise the multilateral development bank family to make sure we continue to act in a multilateral win-win framework.

 

8. Capital Markets Union

Last but not least, the eighth priority is the Capital Markets Union.

As I mentioned, the EIB Group is already a key player in venture capital, venture debt and securitisations, also in green bonds.  . And we want to build on this to pioneer green bonds and digital bonds in Europe. We're working very closely with the European Central Bank to foster the international role of the euro and to pioneer the digital euro. On Capital Markets Union, you will not be surprised, I strongly encourage all of us to make progress from the legislative reform point of view. This is of the essence. There is so much we can do both the Market and the EIB. We need to complement the progress that is made in terms of having a real good framework for capital markets.

 

Let me close with a final word on efficiency and simplification, because in the last year, we have also improved and streamlined our internal procedures, cut red tape, we have become a more digital, efficient and transparent.

The EIB Group’s cost-to-income ratio is already quite low compared to commercial banks and other national development banks and we are committed to constantly increasing our efficiency.

We have already reduced our time to market, the time it takes to assess and sign new operations, by 20%. And we plan to make progress in this direction this year too.

As I mentioned, with the TechEU programme, we aim for a six-month response deadline,  and so that we can really respond to the speedy needs and the accelerated needs in financing startups and scale-ups.

And we’re working very closely with the Commission to streamline  our procedures, to simplify green reporting standards, to fast-track state aid controls, to optimise guarantees from the EU budget I already mentioned, so that we can maximise the potential of the current multiannual financial framework. Very soon we will be engaging in the negotiation of the post-2027 MFF. But the world is not waiting for Europe, and time is of the essence so that we can really support Europe's competitiveness and security now.

The moment to act is now.

Let me close by thanking you again. You representatives of our board of directors will keep us on our toes. The audit committee, that also keeps us on our toes. My colleagues at the management committee and the staff of the EIB Group, at the bank and at the fund, in this very challenging year, very intense work, but also lots of changes, they have responded incredibly. The EIB Group is a formidable machine. It is a true success story of European integration and you can count on us to stay the course, to be even more relevant to support Europe's priorities. And I'm sure we can count on your continued support in this endeavor. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much.