On 28 March 2011, European Investment Bank Vice-President Philippe de Fontaine Vive and Thomas Le Ludec, Group Director of the Centres Hospitaliers de Meaux, Lagny Marne La Vallée and Coulommiers, signed a EUR 70m finance contract for the new Centre Hospitalier de Marne la Vallée, a modern building complying with the High Environmental Quality (HEQ) standards, located in Jossigny in the department of Seine et Marne in France. The EIB finance will ultimately amount to EUR 100m.
The aim of the loan is twofold: to support the construction of an efficient hospital that will improve the delivery and quality of healthcare services in the region, while at the same time taking account of environmental considerations:
- With its capacity of 585 beds and places, the new Centre Hospitalier de Marne la Vallée – which will bring together in a single building all the healthcare services currently provided in a number of separate buildings on the site of the existing Centre Hospitalier de Lagny Marne la Vallée – will be able to meet the healthcare requirements of Marne-la-Vallée’s rapidly growing population. Thanks to its modern technical facilities and multidisciplinary teams of healthcare professionals who will flourish in premises that comply with regulatory and security requirements, it will offer excellent healthcare services.
- In line with the High Environmental Quality concept, the new Centre Hospitalier de Marne la Vallée has set itself the goal of improving its energy performance by reducing conventional energy consumption by more than 20%.
The project already looks very convincing in terms of environmental excellence. The building is simple and compact, well insulated but very light, and was designed to save as much energy as possible thanks to thermal facilities that make use of renewable energy. It will, for instance, be equipped with a geothermal heat pump, in order to significantly reduce annual CO2 emissions.
It was this proactive approach, for the environment and the energy performance of the infrastructure, and the quality of the healthcare provision that were emphasised at the signing ceremony by Mr de Fontaine Vive: “This new hospital serves as an example both in terms of showing respect for the environment and optimising energy efficiency and in terms of effective provision of first-class healthcare services. It will create a new model of healthcare delivery, primarily for the benefit of those living in this region”.
The finance provided by the EIB for the new Centre Hospitalier de Marne la Vallée is in line with the EIB’s priority action on climate, which is aimed mainly at reducing greenhouse gas emissions and supporting projects to mitigate or accommodate climate change. The focus of the EIB’s lending in France in 2010 (EUR 1.7bn), this priority covers just over a third of the number of projects financed in France in the fields of public transport, energy and energy efficiency. In 2009, the EIB had already significantly increased its lending in support of action on climate change in order to contribute to “smart, sustainable and inclusive growth”.
The new HEQ Centre Hospitalier de Marne la Vallée will open in the first half of 2012.
Note to editors:
European Investment Bank (EIB)
The European Investment Bank is the financial institution of the European Union. Its shareholders are the 27 Member States of the EU, who jointly subscribed its capital and whose Finance Ministers constitute its Board of Governors. The EIB's remit is to provide long-term finance for investment projects. In 2010, its financing operations totalled EUR 71.8bn. In France, the EIB lent EUR 4.9bn in 2010, financing 30 concrete projects throughout the country in key areas such as climate action, innovation and R&D, SMEs, education and health – projects directly benefiting French citizens in their daily and working lives and to which the EIB brought the value added of its technical and financial expertise, combined with particularly attractive terms.
In 2010 the EIB provided finance totalling EUR 965m in the health sector in France, mainly under the 2012 Hospital Plan. This programme had practical implications, as it involves the modernisation of a hundred or so medium-sized hospitals in France (the construction of new units, reorganisation or restructuring of services, renovation of existing hospitals and establishment of joint logistical or technical platforms). The EIB also granted a EUR 100m loan to the Amiens university hospital in 2010.
Generally speaking, the EIB supports the main EU objectives in the following areas:
- Small and medium-sized enterprises: encouraging small businesses to invest.
- Cohesion and convergence: tackling the economic and social imbalances in the less favoured regions.
- Measures to tackle climate change: mitigating the effects of and adjusting to global warming.
- Environmental protection and sustainable communities: investing in a cleaner natural and urban environment.
- Promotion of sustainable, competitive and secure forms of energy: producing alternative sources of energy and reducing dependence on imports.
- Knowledge economy: promoting an economy that stimulates knowledge and creativity through investment in information and communication technologies and human and social capital.
- Trans-European networks: building cross-border networks in the transport, energy and communications sector.
