Arcelor Mittal Steel product and processing R&D Facility Project

The complaint concerns an allegation of maladministration against the EIB on the grounds that the EIB decided to proceed to sign loan agreement for the financing of the “Steel product and processing R&D Facility” before the EIB CM had issued its Conclusions Report on a previous complaint concerning that lending operation (see SG/G/10/01). That prior complaint concerned the compliance of that lending operation in support of the Arcelor Mittal Steel product and processing R&D Facility Project with the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU (TFEU) as well as with the EIB Statute, alleging that that operation had been proposed in spite of the availability of alternative financial resources for the borrower and that therefore the EIB, in lending towards the financing of this project, would fail to rationally employ its funds, as required by its Statute. The current complaint is to be considered as additional and will be dealt with in parallel and within the same deadline as SG/G/10/01.

In handling the complaint SG/G/10/01 the EIB/CM had found that the EIB Management Committee had complied with its statutory duty as it had informed the Board of Directors of the scarcity of financial sources for this type of investment and therefore of the necessity of the investment proposed for approval. In its Conclusions report the EIB CM had advised the Management Committee to include, in its proposal to the Board of Directors, a paragraph on the availability of alternative sources of funding for a proposed project in order for the Board of Directors to exercise its functions under article 9 of the Statute.

Moreover, as the objective of the contested loan was to the improve the R&D programme of the Borrower to make its production methods more respectful of the environment, the decision to sign the loan would, according to the complainants, be subject to the Aarhus Convention on Access to Information and therefore, by signing the loan before the issue of the Conclusions Report, the EIB would have infringed the Aarhus Convention by not denying the public the right to challenge the project under Art. 9.3 and demanding adequate, effective, fair and timely remedies for the purposes of Art.9.4 of the Aarhus Convention.

The EIB/CM work:

From the analysis of the complaint the EIB/CM concludes that complainants view that the EIB CM should provide complainants with the reply on his or her complaint lodged before any decision of the EIB Management Committee or, as in this case, of EIB services, i.e. that the lodging of a complaint would, de facto, suspend the whole EIB due-diligence appraisal procedure up to and including the signature of a finance contract for the appraised project – the EIB project cycle. This would not be in line with the EIB/CM procedures or policies. An automatic suspension of the project cycle would, moreover, undermine the EIB’s operational efficiency and its capacity to manage its fund rationally to the ultimate detriment of the public interest and the objectives the EU. The EIB/CM may recommend the suspension of the EIB project cycle but such recommendation would be subject to the decisions taken by the EIB governing bodies.

Re. the alleged breach of the Aarhus Convention, the EIB CM does not see which piece of EU environmental law would have been violated by the decision of the EIB to sign the loan prior to the completion of the conclusions report of case SG/G/10/01 by the EIB/CM.

Conclusion:

In view of the findings above, the EIB CM thus proceeds to the closing of the file.