Italy: EIB and CEB provide EUR 1.555bn in financing to Government for school buildings via CDP

• European Investment Bank (EIB) and Council of Europe Development Bank (CEB) are making available EUR 1.255bn and EUR 300m for the School Buildings Plan, prepared and coordinated by the Ministry for Education, Universities and Research (MIUR).
• Cassa Depositi e Prestiti (CDP) will use the funds to grant loans to the Regions to finance primary and secondary school projects
• Substantial financial benefits for the Italian State from funds provided by these two international institutions

The EU and international financial institutions will continue to modernise Italian schools and make them safer with the support of MIUR. Two agreements providing sizeable resources for school buildings were signed today in Rome: a total of EUR 1.555bn, attributed by the EIB (EUR 1.255bn) and the CEB (300m). These funds will be deployed by Cassa Depositi e Prestiti in support of local authorities that own their school buildings.

The agreements were signed today in Rome, in the presence of Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, by the Minister for Education, Universities and Research Marco Bussetti, EIB Vice-President Dario Scannapieco, CEB Vice-Governor Carlo Monticelli, and CDP's Chief Executive Officer Fabrizio Palermo. 

The loans are intended to fund operations in the fields of restructuring, compliance with safety and seismic standards, energy efficiency and the construction of new school buildings. The funds will be provided by CDP to municipalities, provinces and metropolitan cities on the basis of priority rankings decided by the Regions that have been granted loans; these priority rankings are incorporated in the 2018-2020 national school buildings programme of the Ministry for Education, Universities and Research, which coordinates the plan and will monitor the use of funds. Depreciation costs will be borne by the Government and, thanks to specific disbursement arrangements, the final beneficiaries will be able to use the funds without impacting their own internal stability pact. 

Using these EIB and CEB funds will help the Italian Government make significant interest payment savings thanks to the favourable terms for bond fund-raising that apply to these two international institutions (EIB: AAA/AAA/Aaa; CEB: AAA/AA+/Aa1).

Overall, the funds allocated today and in recent years by EU and international financial institutions will be used to develop more than 9 000 school buildings. Thanks to the School Buildings Plan and economic cooperation between the relevant players, there are advanced IT systems mapping all school buildings across Italy and monitoring infrastructural work (accessible in georeferenced and open data formats). These systems are highly valued in Europe.