Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-04-22-Speech-2-014"
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".
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, allow me first of all to thank you for giving me the chance once again to continue our dialogue with the European Parliament. I think it is important that an institution like the EIB should regularly have to explain itself to the representatives of EU citizens.
Mr Staes asked a question about the anti-fraud policy. We have just published our anti-fraud policy following a consultation procedure that required several rounds of talks. In relation to the specific question he raised, about a debarment system that would prohibit companies guilty of fraud or corruption from continuing to participate in projects we were financing, we announce in this policy that we hope to be able to use the same system that the Commission is attempting to set up. If we could not – and we should know this by the end of the year – if, for legal reasons, we could not use the same system, then we would set up our own debarment system.
As regards our financing in the energy sector, we have reviewed our policy on financing energy projects in the light of European guidelines on combating climate change. As a result, we have decided to give priority to investments of the type that will reduce CO
emissions, and this already shows up in the figures for 2007, since finance for electricity generation products using fossil fuels accounts for only 25% of our financing in the energy sector. In 2007, the amount committed to renewable energies, for example, far exceeds the amount committed to these more traditional forms of energy generation.
Finally, as regards the millennium development goals, we are obviously trying, as far as possible, to make sure our projects contribute to their achievement. However, I would draw your attention to the fact that when we intervene outside the European Union, we are acting on the basis of specific mandates given to us by the European Council. The millennium development goals do not feature as such in the mandates we have received from the European Council. That is why it is not possible to make as direct a link as you would have liked.
Finally, to Mr Dillen who, if I understood correctly, mentioned a project he said we financed in the Democratic Republic of Congo, I can say that for several years now we have not provided any more finance in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Our board of directors has in principle approved finance for a mining project in Katanga, but nothing has yet been paid out for this project. The loan agreement has not yet been signed. Why is this? It is because the new Congolese Government quite rightly wanted to renegotiate the licence conditions to ensure more of the revenue went back to the Congolese state, and we suspended the signing of the contract until a satisfactory agreement had been reached between the promoter and the Congolese Government.
Mr President, those are a few answers I can give to those who spoke, and I would like to thank Parliament once again, and particularly the Committee on Budgetary Control for our excellent collaboration.
I would particularly like to thank Mr Audy for his report. I can bear witness to the fact that he has put a great deal of personal effort into writing this report. He took part in many working meetings both in Brussels and Luxembourg, thereby taking up the constructive dialogue we began with his predecessors. In his presentation this morning, he highlighted two points.
The first issue is one we have already talked about in previous reports – I remember Mr Schmidt’s report and Mr Lipietz’s report – and it is the issue of whether the European Investment Bank, because it is a bank, should be subject to banking control or supervision. This is not provided for as the texts currently stand. There are, of course, audits of the European Investment Bank: the audit by the Court of Auditors, to the extent that the EIB uses EU funds, and also the audit by the audit committee, composed of experts appointed by the governors, who report directly to our governors. It is true, however, that, if we want to apply the best banking practices to the EIB, it would undoubtedly be desirable for a specialist body to check that these practices are correctly applied to the EIB.
Theoretically, we can think of three possible avenues. The first is written into the Treaty of Maastricht, in Article 105(6). This would be the possibility of the European Central Bank exercising this supervisory role. The Treaty states that the Council, acting unanimously, may confer a prudential supervision role on the European Central Bank. This is an avenue that exists theoretically but realistically it is doubtful whether the Member States, at the moment at least, would be unanimous in conferring this new role on the European Central Bank.
Another possibility is the one we have embarked on informally, namely calling on a national regulator. At the moment it is the Luxembourg regulator, the Supervisory Council of the Luxembourg financial sector, which also performs this role in relation to the European Investment Bank, particularly when it comes to checking Basel II is being applied correctly.
A third avenue for exploration would be to strengthen the audit committee provided for in our Statute, and to convert it into a quasi-banking supervisor. The Reform Treaty provides for the enlargement of the audit committee. A first step might be to appoint a number of banking supervisors, who would bring to the audit committee the necessary experience to check that the EIB is actually applying best practices in this matter.
The second point highlighted by Mr Audy was the special role he would like to see the European Investment Bank play in infrastructure, particularly the trans-European networks. As you know, the EIB already plays a relatively important role in this. Last year, we financed the trans-European networks to the tune of nearly EUR 9 billion. We use various instruments, including our structured finance facility, which allows us to take more risks than is generally the rule. For example, we recently did this for a motorway in Greece. This is a good concrete example of the use of this particular facility to encourage the private sector to take more risks with the operation of a motorway.
With the European Commission very recently, we developed a new guarantee mechanism to cover a particular type of risk, the risk of insufficient traffic during the first few years of operation of an item of infrastructure. Experience has shown that the first four or five years are often the trickiest. These are the years when income is not necessarily at the level hoped for. This causes problems for private operators, so to encourage the private sector to take on the financing of such infrastructure regardless of this problem, in conjunction with the Commission we have developed a new guarantee mechanism.
I would add that the European Investment Bank has taken the initiative of setting up a European expertise centre in public-private partnerships to share our experience in this area with national representatives. Mr Audy, this is certainly an area in which the EIB is eager to continue its action."@en1
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