President Calviño on the lessons learnt from the current EU long-term budget

Thank you very much, dear Chair.

It is as always a great pleasure to come back to the European Parliament and exchange views with you on the Multiannual Financial Framework.

It's also a pleasure to see so many friends and colleagues in the room, and this is a very timely discussion to say the least.

Probably more timely today than even it was yesterday because as I'm sure you were discussing in different sessions today, it is clear that the global order that has benefited the EU for the last 80 years is changing.

And if Europe wants to have a strong voice in the world and continue on the path of peace, prosperity, and technological leadership, it's clear we need to invest. 

We must put Europe's capital to work and in that endeavor, unity pays off. The European economy has managed to weather the storms of the last years well greatly because we responded together in a spirit of unity, solidarity, and determination. Commissioner Hahn was just referring to these and deploying common financing tools at scale.

The European budget is the main financial instrument to deploy the necessary policies and projects, pulling resources together to maximize impact.

And the EIB, the European Investment Bank Group, is the main implementing partner to leverage the mandates and guarantees of the EU budget and thus to mobilise these large-scale public and private investments to support our shared priorities. 

As you surely know, the EIB Group is probably the largest multilateral development bank in the world with a very large balance sheet, close to 600 billion euros, and it is equally the only local bank active throughout the whole EU, financing projects and operations in every single region of our union.

The EIB is rooted locally, benefiting citizens and companies across our union. 

We have annual investments around 88 billion euros of which 90% is committed for projects inside the EU and the remaining 10% is deployed for investments outside the EU, reinforcing Europe's voice in the world with support to Ukraine being our key priority right now. 

Going forward, there's a strong call for the EIB to play an even greater role. I mean, you were just discussing the Letta report, the Draghi report, the most recent Niinisto report, all of them unanimously support the role of the EIB to finance priority projects.

Just this morning, we had a first discussion with our board on the operational plan for next year with a significant increase of financing volumes up to 95 billion euros, which if approved by the board in December, of course, and could be revised by mid-next year after the formal decision to increase the gearing ratio, an issue that we will be discussing just after this session.

And this operational plan is reflecting the strategic roadmap unanimously endorsed by our shareholders, 27 Member States in June, focusing on eight co-investment priorities totally aligned with the political guidelines of the new commission. 

First of all, to consolidate the EIB as the climate bank with over half of our financing inside the EU supporting the green transition. And this means investing in large energy infrastructures, sustainable transport, renewables, decarbonization of heavy industry, new fuels such as green hydrogen, water infrastructures.

The recent floods in Spain and months back in Central and Eastern Europe confirmed the need to invest more in adaptation and resilience.

And it is not only the right thing to do, it is also the smart thing to do because every euro invested in resilience and adaptation saves five to seven euros in repair of damages. Water is an area of increased attention in view of the acceleration and increased cost of climate change, generating drought and floods.

And the same way we are locked financing for central European countries hit by the floods, at our board, this meeting, we have discussed a package of urgent financial support to Spain that we have been preparing together with the Spanish government to facilitate redeployments and accelerate disbursement of existing facilities up to 900 million euros for reconstruction of critical infrastructures with the built back better approach so that they are more stronger, resilient to extreme weather events in the future. 

And this, I think, is a great example of how we can leverage the European budget, how we can mobilise these resources very fast by using the existing instruments within the European Investment Bank Group. 

The second priority going forward, is accelerating digitalisation and technological innovation. Europe is a technology powerhouse. We have leading universities, research centers, leading companies in health and clean tech.

We must support their competitiveness and growth as signaled by the Letta and Draghi reports.

Putting together all of our instruments and existing programs under the European budget, under the current MFF, we could mobilise 120 billion euros in equity investments. We could have a comprehensive strategic approach to boost the impact of these investments with equity and venture debt under the current MFF. And this is a very large amount that can really make a difference. So when we are thinking how could we increase the impact of the European budget, you have here some room to mobilise large-scale financing. 

Actually, the European Investment Fund is a leading player in Europe's venture capital ecosystem, and our experience shows that public sector can really mobilise private investments at scale to finance European companies with a very clear objective: ideas, technologies, companies which are born in the EU should be able to remain, grow and prosper in the European Union. I'm sure that all of you will agree with this objective. 

Our third priority is stepping up investments in Europe's security and defense industry while safeguarding our AAA status.

Unfortunately, the war in Ukraine has made it clear that Europe needs to be more independent, more united on this front, and this priority is extremely important today.

We have taken a very proactive approach since the beginning of the year, and this is already expected to deliver some signatures in the course of 2024 and gain momentum next year. 

Fourthly, the EIB will continue to contribute to a modern cohesion policy, a top priority I know for many of the members of parliament here today.

Almost half of our annual lending inside the EU goes to cohesion regions, complementing the grants under the EU budget to support projects and bring opportunities where talent is. 

The fifth priority, supporting innovative financing for agriculture and the bioeconomy.

Actually, I'm glad to report this morning's board meeting approved the largest ever EIB program, with 3 billion euros to support small and medium-sized firms operating in the agriculture and bioeconomy sectors in the EU for the years 2025 to 2027. And we're also exploring ways to support insurance and reinsurance mechanisms for the agriculture sector. 

Sixth priority, social infrastructures, which are at the heart of the European way of life.

This means investing in education, health, and housing, a common challenge to most European countries, and also a priority for the new commission. 

Then finally, turning to investments outside the EU. We are prioritising support to Ukraine.

Right now, the EIB Group is probably the main investment partner to the Ukrainian government, a successful enlargement and investments to reinforce stability in the Mediterranean and Sub-Saharan Africa.

Impact is probably the best word to summarise our role in implementing key mandates from the European budget, from the Ukraine facility to the neighborhood development and international cooperation industry instruments, known as NDICI. Always in close partnership with European Commission and supporting our strategic priorities. 

This is on the investment side.

Our final priority is trying to reinforce Europe's capital markets union.

Working together with the commission and member states, we are exploring how to increase Europe's leadership in the area of green and digital bonds to close the financing gap throughout the innovation and company cycle, and to support also large-scale investments in top priorities like critical raw materials.

I can elaborate during the Q&A session on this very important element of capital markets union, I think one of the top priorities right now. 

Let me close with a final message on the critical importance of the EU budget and a call for action.

Guarantees and mandates from the European budget are indispensable for the EIB Group to leverage its capital and finance risky activities while preserving its AAA rating.

The EU budget is also critical to finance advisory services through programs such as JASPERS, which are really helping shape projects and develop administrative capabilities to the benefit of our economies and our partners.

For example, thanks to InvestEU, we are building the first fully integrated lithium mining and processing facility in Finland. We are supporting Ukraine in preparing the projects and recovering and rebuilding its infrastructures.

The European Commission estimates that each euro invested in the EU budget through financial instruments has contributed to an average 15 euros of investment made by final beneficiaries. 

So there is a clear role for the EIB to increase and multiply the impact of every euro in the European budget.

So going forward, and this is my call for action, dear Chair, and I count on your support here. I would like to leave you with the final message, which is any new framework and any action we take under the current Multiannual Financial Framework should really focus on optimisation and simplification because through the years, mandate management has become increasingly complicated.

The EIB Group manages 50 mandates on behalf of the European Commission, 38 are from previous programming period, but they still absorb financial resources and require very significant monitoring. 

We also manage 87 mandates, deploying resources under shared management. I'm sure you have discussed this with the Court of Auditors just a moment ago. And this means that we are required to produce no less than 440 reports just to report to the European Commission on the mandates we are managing.

So the impact and pace of deployment of European investments would be improved significantly.

We could focus on simplification, optimisation, consolidating existing mandates, discontinuing old ones to integrate them into three overarching large mandates that would allow us, according to our estimates, to unlock 50 billion euros in additional investment under the current MFF. 

I don't think we can wait for the next Multiannual Financial Framework to try to have the maximum impact with the European budget if we want to keep leadership in the world. So waiting for the final confirmation of the European Parliament for the new commissioners.

We are already engaging, of course, with the European Commission to see how we can maximise, optimise, achieve the maximum impact on the ground to the benefit of Europe's citizens and businesses. 

Let me close here with a call for action counting on your support in this endeavor.

I'm very interested to hear your views on these matters and see how we can reinforce our partnership with the different European institutions.

So thank you very much and looking forward to our discussion.