President Calviño: Banking on Europe’s strengths

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen,

Thank you, Wim, for your kind words, and for this invitation to share a few thoughts on the main theme of this summit - how European banks can support growth, innovation and security.

There are three reasons that I really feel at home discussing this topic here today:

First of all, because these goals are at the core of the EIB Group’s investment strategy. A strategy unanimously adopted by our shareholders – the 27 governments of the European Union.

With its AAA rating, a €600 billion balance sheet, robust profitability and capital position, the EIB Group is among the largest multilateral financial institutions in the world and a cornerstone of the European project.

Pan-European by design, with projects and presence in every corner of our Union and in 160 countries around the world, and with a diversified portfolio that enables large-scale investments, risk taking in innovative ventures and the mobilization of private finance, the EIB Group is a key engine in delivering on these goals.

Which brings me to the second reason why I feel this is a good time and place to discuss: tomorrow morning, the EIB Group is presenting its 2025 results, here in Brussels.

So, I have some numbers, hot from the oven, that allow us to say that 2025 has been a historic year for the European Investment Bank Group:

• We signed a record €100 billion in new financing, a very large volume that will be maintained in 2026.
• We hit historic records in key areas, such as energy grids, housing, water, and for innovative projects – new technologies, disruptive technologies, so that we can support Europe's technological leadership.
• Also a first, we changed our policies to start investing into pure defence projects in Europe, swiftly responding to a new geopolitical landscape. We multiplied by four lending volumes for European security and defence, and outperformed our targets, reaching last year already 5% of our annual business inside the EU.

In every single of these achievements, the EIB Group worked very closely together with Europe’s commercial banks, with investment funds and the private sector – with many of the institutions in this room.

In fact, EIB Group’s total engagement with European financial sector, represented here today, amounted to around €35 billion last year.

The EIB Group provided financing, delivered capital relief and thereby improved funding conditions for your clients, especially small and medium-sized firms;

Also guarantees and counter-guarantees to de-risk investments for Europe’s strategic industries and innovators;

Our bankers signed a record €6 billion in securitisation agreements;

and worked closely with the private sector on equity co-investments and products.

By working together, we maximised impact, channelling savings into productive investment, and strengthening Europe’s position as an attractive destination for capital.

And those synergies are more important than ever today, as the reshaping of the global order enters a new phase.

When everything, everywhere, all at once is changing, unity and collaboration hold the key for Europe to remain an anchor of trust for the rest of the world – and for those of you that were in Davos last week, I'm sure that that this message resonated a lot in the different events that you had.

Transition into the Future

Let me walk you through some examples of how the EIB Group and European banks are investing together with purpose, to build a stronger Europe in a safer world.

Almost 60% of total financing in 2025 went to green projects. This is not only the right thing to do for our planet, but the smart thing to do to boost Growth and competitiveness: bringing clean and affordable energy to businesses and households and reducing Europe’s dependence on fossil fuel imports.

Working with lenders across Europe, the EIB doubled its financing for energy efficiency investments by SMEs, launching a flagship initiative with the European Commission to provide €17.5 billion in financing – channelled through commercial banks – to bring down energy bill for more than 350,000 small and mid-sized companies by 2027.

Equally important, green investments support industries where Europe is a global leader.

Political rhetoric may shift, but the business case is clear: an energy revolution is already in full swing and Europe can build on its strength as a manufacturing powerhouse to retain technological leadership.

The EIB Group invests across the full spectrum of low carbon technologies to help make sure Europe retains this edge, from new fuels, energy storage, lithium extraction, geothermal energy, nuclear production, decarbonisation of heavy industry, electrolyzers, heat pumps, electric vehicle infrastructure. In our portfolio, we have investments, some of them high-risk investments, in these areas, these technologies of the future.

In addition to its own record direct lending for clean energy projects, the EIB Group is joining forces with commercial banks, providing counter-guarantees to support the entire supply chain of wind and grid manufacturing sectors.

Recent examples include an agreement with Erste Bank in Austria to boost Trade Finance for Europe’s wind energy sector. And a guarantee to Commerzbank to unlock more lending for local projects, including the modernisation and expansion of electricity distribution networks, district heating and water and wastewater networks. This was a first, a groundbreaking agreement that we hope will be replicated in other parts of Europe.

This investment strategy is bearing fruit:

Almost a third of annual GDP growth in the EU now comes from the manufacturing, deployment and sales of such clean technologies.

• European renewable energy stocks have climbed over 60% in the past year. 
• And the annual results of some of the biggest European car manufacturers released a few days ago, such as Renault and Volkswagen, for example, show annual increase in pure electric car sales in Europe by over 60% and over 70% (!).
• At the EIB Group, we see this positive outlook for green investment in the robust demand for green bonds – a product we pioneered into global capital markets and became a multi-trillion asset class in its own right, where European issuers lead. The latest benchmark we issued was more than 10 times oversubscribed, attracting record orders. In these very volatile times, these bonds are creating a European safe asset for investors, an increasingly deep and liquid market of top-quality securities under European flag, thus boosting the appeal of the Euro and Europe as a safe harbour.

Nurturing Unicorns

Now, beyond green technologies..

I was reflecting about this when I was hearing the previous panel speakers, and I'm sure this is the mood in many exchanges that you are having. And many people keep saying things like, "We can't,” “we will not be able," or, "it will take five, 10 times more."

It reminds me a lot of what we heard when the pandemic exploded: as you know, I was vice-president of the Spanish government then. And scientific experts told us, "It is impossible to have a vaccine before four or five years." By December 2020, we were vaccinating people here in Europe because we worked together, the public and the private sector, and we invested huge amounts of money. And we did it. Actually, BioNtech is now expanding its capacity to invest in Africa, it’s creating vaccine manufacturing facilities in Africa – with the financing from European Investment Bank, by the way.

Today, the EU is also one of the world’s centres of excellence in quantum and high-performance computing, a powerhouse for industrial robotics and advanced manufacturing, in aerospace technologies, in biotech, healthtech and medical devices, in advanced pharmaceuticals.

Our universities and research institutions are second to none, and we have vibrant ecosystem of tech pioneers building the foundations of tomorrow’s economy.

But Europe is also incubator of the world, because when those companies need to grow, they often go elsewhere to get the large-scale financing and a big internal market, with no barriers to reach economies of scale.

It’s good to see things are changing and Europe is rising to the challenge.

For instance, through the upcoming 28^th regime, to overcome internal market fragmentation, attract investors, providing legal certainty and predictability. I think there are high hopes. At least that's the message I pass on to the Commissioner every time I meet him: "High hopes, be bold, be ambitious," because that can really be a game changer if we manage to have a single set of rules, a single system for companies and investors throughout Europe, providing legal certainty and predictability.

We are supporting these efforts in close cooperation with the European Commission, providing our perspective as a large public and financial institution, which is also subject to regulation and so very well aware of the burdens and the need to reduce red tape and simplify.

Beyond this work, we launched TechEU, the biggest ever financing programme for innovation in Europe, with the goal of mobilising €250 billion by 2027 in investments in artificial intelligence, quantum computing, digital technologies, health and biotech, clean tech, security and defence, skills and talent, digital infrastructures, and critical raw materials.

I was impressed when working with the European Commission in their initiative to create AI gigafactories in Europe, because they are quite determined to bridge the gaps that exist when it comes to digital infrastructures and to build this AI capacity for European companies to benefit.

TechEU is a key priority on which the EIB Group is working closely together with commercial banks. We have launched four dedicated lines to support innovation in Cleantech, Housing, Biotech and SpaceTechEU, in collaboration with the European Space Agency and the banking sector, to mobilize 1.4 billion of new investment for European space companies.

Looking ahead, we will be building on the huge success story of the European Tech Champions Initiative, thanks to which our risk-capital subsidiary, the European Investment Fund, has already anchored the creation of 12 venture capital mega funds in Europe, and the scale up of 35 startups, including nine unicorns!

Leveraging its position as the largest venture capital financier in Europe, the EIB Group has pioneered the creation of scaleup ecosystem of mega-funds in Europe - essentially from scratch - in less than three years.

Now we are going a step further: with the expansion of the European Tech Champions Initiative, so that it can really make a difference in terms of closing the scale up financing gap with the US, and move the needle toward a true European Savings and Investments Union.

Defending Democracy

Harvesting the potential of innovation in clean tech and other new technologies to secure our future prosperity is only possible in an environment of peace and security for our citizens and for our businesses.

And here Europe the EIB Group, as well as commercial banks, fund managers and investors really shifted up two gears last year.

As I said earlier, for the EIB Group, it has been a real step change, with a strong pipeline of projects in five areas:

• Large critical infrastructure, including military mobility, such as a flagship military base in Lithuania’s border with Belarus.
• Homegrown industrial capabilities, working with household names in the European defence industry, like Thales or the drone manufacturer Quantum systems;
• Research and development of new security technologies. Only a couple of weeks ago, we signed another agreement with an innovative Dutch company developing a pioneering fibre-optic sensors technology to protect Europe’s seabed and underwater assets, like high volage grids.
• Fourth, we are supporting SMEs in the supply chain of European defence contractors, partnering up with commercial banks. We have already announced such agreements with Deutsche Bank, BPCE in France, Piraeus Bank in Greece, and – later this week – another one is coming with Santander in Spain.
• And fifth, we are nurturing the development of a venture capital ecosystem investing in European security defence, with the EIF as anchor investor in the first such funds.

Such defence investments can have positive spillover effects to the wider economy.

Investing in Values

A final word before I close: the fight for Europe's prosperity, technological leadership, innovation and security is also a fight for our values. It's a battle about what defines us as Europeans, like the social infrastructure that underpins the European way of life, good homes, high quality healthcare and education, providing a future for our children.

These are the things that I think make us all proud here, equal opportunity, social and territorial cohesion, having the best agricultural products and the best food in the world.

There are many reasons why I think we feel proud when we go around in this brave new world which is in the making. At least I feel proud.

And I would like to thank all European banks because they are joining in this fight, which I consider to be the good fight, at this point of history. These are things worth fighting for. I would like to thank all European banks for joining us in this fight.

Conclusion: Superpower Europe

These are the things worth fighting for, and beyond the noise, the main message I heard in Davos was one of strong confidence in Europe, a strong call from our partners for Europe to have a strong voice in shaping this new global order.

We are pragmatic when we can, and firm when we must. Standing by Denmark’s side is a recent example. Supporting Ukraine through thick and thin, including with a 90 billion euros in new financing is another one.

And we see that despite tariffs and geopolitical uncertainty, businesses are resilient. They continue to invest and have adjusted to the tariff shock. And the outlook is improving, with work on integrating our capital markets picking up steam. 2026 will be a key year, actually, to make progress in that area.

European stocks and our currency outperformed the US last year, rewarding investors who chose to allocate their capital on our economy. European bank stocks are up, I don't know, close to 60% over the past year, not to talk about the multiplication times three of the value of stocks in the area of security and defence, for obvious reasons.

Beyond financial markets, opinion polls show record high support for the EU and the euro.

Our allies – from Mercosur to Ukraine to the Balkans – believe in us. Because they know that in a world of walls, we build bridges.

So, I think we have every reason to believe in ourselves because Europe is and will remain a superpower, if we stick together.

That's probably the main message I wanted to leave with you, you know: our unity is our strength. It is our superpower. If we stick together and we work rowing in the same direction, I think we are unstoppable. That's what history has taught us.

So, that is the good fight where the European Investment Bank Group is determined to play its role, contributing to a safer, more stable and prosperous world and to powering Europe.

Thank you very much for the invitation and the exchange, and I look forward to continuing the discussion with you. Thank you.