Europe’s top development banks agree to deepen cooperation outside EU

The EU’s lending arm, the European Investment Bank, and the London-based European Bank for Reconstruction and Development said that they would deepen their cooperation outside of the European Union.

EIB President Werner Hoyer said that their shareholders, the EU member states, have asked them to develop a more effective partnership with the EBRD. The agreement they have signed today will equip their institutions even better to work together in a complementary way.

European leaders have been wary about an increasing overlap between the two institutions’ work. Two years ago, a report by a wise person’s group, which was led by former senior EU official Thomas Wieser laid out different options to try and avoid such issues. While the EIB is fully controlled by the EU, the EBRD is also owned by governments from elsewhere in the world. And that includes the United States and other G7 nations such as Britain and Japan.