Poland: The EIB at the 31st Economic Forum in Karpacz

Teresa Czerwińska – Vice-President of the European Investment Bank is participating in the 31^st Economic Forum in Karpacz, in Lower Silesia (Poland), as a speaker in the opening session and she will be talking about EIB’s support for the green transition and EIB’s involvement in supporting Ukraine and EU countries hosting refugees.

The Economic Forum in Karpacz, on 6-8 September, is the largest conference in Central and Eastern Europe. For 30 years now, the Forum has gathered political, economic and social leaders from over 60 countries around the world. It serves as a platform owing to which the most important figures in European politics and economy can exchange their views. This year’s theme of already the 31^st edition is “Europe in the Face of New Challenges”.

At the beginning of this year, when most European economies have been recovering from the Covid-19 impact, Russia invaded Ukraine. This war and its consequences – embargos on Russia – evoked new wave of crisis in EU countries.

The EIB, from the beginning of the war, has already provided two packages of support to Ukraine. First one - it was an emergency support package of €668 million fully disbursed within a month of the war’s outbreak. Second package, announced on the 25^th of July 2022, of €1.59 billion, supported by guarantees from the EU budget, was designed to help Ukraine repair the most essential damaged infrastructure and resume critically important projects addressing the urgent needs of Ukrainian people.

Additionally, in April 2022, the EIB announced a solidarity package of €4 billion to finance urban and regional investments in EU Member States in response to the Ukrainian conflict and, in particular, to provide adequate infrastructure to accommodate the large number of refugees, predominantly women, children and elderly persons. This support is expected to contribute to new construction, refurbishment and extension of infrastructures increasing the capacity of cities and regions to adequately respond to the needs of refugees and hosting communities. Poland, as the country hosting the largest number of refugees, will receive €2 billion.

“The Economic Forum gives the unique opportunity to discuss the most valid themes – this year all European Union countries has been affected by the consequences of the war in Ukraine. Instead of post-Covid recovery we face another crisis impacting EU economy. The European Investment Bank has reacted immediately with support to Ukraine and the countries hosting refugees and we are ready to continue this support to meet the future needs.” – said Vice-President of the EIB prof. Teresa Czerwińska.

Another theme discussed during the debate is support for the climate action and environmental sustainability activities is particularly relevant for cohesion regions. In practice, the EIB’s 2021 lending data show that climate action and environmental sustainability and cohesion are interlinked priorities, with 23% of the Bank’s lending volume being in both climate action/environmental sustainability and cohesion.

It should be stressed that the current decade 2021-2030 will be decisive for saving the climate and environment as the window to limit global warming to 1.5 Celsius is closing. The EIB has pledged to mobilize EUR 1 trillion to support climate-saving activities in the 2021-2030 period.