Vice-President Östros’s areas of oversight include financing of energy, health and life sciences, EIB Global (development policy together with Vice-President Fayolle; pre-accession policy is with Vice-President Kakouris), financing operations in Austria, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Sweden, Russia*, the ACP countries (Africa and the Pacific, except the Caribbean States and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), jointly with Vice-President Fayolle), relations with the EIB Group Audit Committee, corporate responsibility, diversity and inclusion, Legal – lending operations. Vice-President Östros also oversees relations with the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) and the European Ombudsman, relations with the Gulf countries, relations with central banks' debt management offices, and relations with the African Development Bank (AfDB), the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB) and the Nordic Investment Bank (NIB).
Austria: EIB Group and Erste Bank join forces to provide additional lending to small and medium enterprises and mid-caps
The EIB Group — consisting of the European Investment Bank (EIB) and the European Investment Fund (EIF) — has provided Erste Bank der oesterreichischen Sparkassen AG (Erste Bank) with a guarantee for a €49 million mezzanine tranche of a synthetic securitisation transaction. The transaction is expected to provide capital relief, as provided for by the EU Capital Requirements Regulation. It is the first synthetic securitisation transaction in Austria that qualifies as a simple, transparent and standardised (STS) transaction under the European Securitisation Regulation.