The European Investment Bank adopted a revised transparency policy and an updated complaints mechanism during its board meeting of 2 February 2010. The Board commended the documents as exemplary, in particular the comprehensive scope of the revised complaints mechanism and the high level of transparency provided through the updated policy. It remarked that the Transparency Policy compares favourably with best benchmarks, while safeguarding the legitimate requirements for confidentiality of the Bank's clients.
The new complaints mechanism provides members of the public who are, or feel, affected by the Bank's decisions with a comprehensive tool enabling resolution of disputes. Any member of the public has access to the mechanism. If not satisfied with the outcome, an external and fully independent, second level of recourse to the European Ombudsman is provided for, which makes EIB's grievance mechanism unique among international financing institutions.
Human rights are now included in complaints mechanism and allegations of human rights violations are valid reasons to invoke the complaints process. The role of transparency in the reduction of the risk of human rights violations is equally recognized in the new transparency policy, which also emphasizes the importance to foster stakeholder engagement on projects with a human rights risk potential.
The new transparency policy fully takes into account the Lisbon Treaty, which recently entered into force, incorporating its provisions in terms of transparency and reflecting the principles and standards therein.
Both policies were reviewed following a best-practice, formal public consultation of two full rounds, reflecting the views of civil society organizations, international and EU institutions, the private-sector, consultants, academia and members of the public.
For the full text of the documents, please refer to: