Calviño Praises Increased Corporate and Defence Lending at EIB Board of Governors Meeting

On 20 June 2025, the European Investment Bank (EIB) held its board of governors meeting. The board of governors is made up of the ministers of finance of the EU member states, the shareholders of the Bank. In her opening speech president Nadia Calviño framed the EIB as a central pillar of the EU’s competitiveness ambitions, describing the Bank as a “formidable machine” delivering record financing to support “a stronger Europe in a more sustainable, more peaceful world.”

The Board of Governors decided to raise the EIB’s 2025 financing ceiling to a record €100 billion, €11 billion more than in 2024. This expansion was presented as a sign of the Bank’s strength and agility. Yet, the sheer scale of this financial commitment raises serious questions: who sets the priorities, who benefits, and what democratic mechanisms exist to ensure this money serves the public good?

President Calviño proudly reaffirmed that climate is the EIB’s “first priority”, calling it “a no-brainer”. Yet, nowhere in the speech was there a reference to phasing out fossil fuels, closing loopholes through which €10 billion has flown towards banks and companies expanding fossil fuel investments, or ending support to fossil-based hydrogen or carbon capture and storage (CCS). The Bank plans €11 billion in investments in energy grids storage and increases support for clean tech industrial innovation.

The EIB approved several instruments under its TechEU programme which will provide equity, quasi-equity, loans and guarantees in 2025-2027 to take away risks for private investors and aims to generate at least €250 billion in total investments to support the Clean Industrial Deal. TechEU targets support for critical raw materials, clean technologies and industries as well as digital, health, security and defence investments.

The approved instruments will provide guarantees and other financial support for grid component manufacturers (€1,5 billion), for power purchase agreements for clean energy for mid-sized and large energy intensive companies (€500 million), SMEs developing clean tech and wind turbine manufacturers.

As highlighted in the latest Counter Balance’s report, Behind EIB’s Green Curtains, while the Bank increasingly promotes private sector participation, it is still the public sector that implements the majority of climate and environmental projects (45%), especially in areas where profitability is limited. Yet, instead of prioritising direct public investment in essential services, the EIB continues to lean on financial instruments and structures designed to meet the profit expectation of mostly large-scale private companies and investors. This approach not only sidelines public-interest-driven solutions but also fails to address key structural barriers to a just transition, such as energy poverty, lack of access to sustainable infrastructure, and regional inequalities.

The areas in which the EIB takes action are indeed essential for the energy transition but the approach follows to a large extent the market based approach analysed in our report. These instruments risk reinforcing the market-logic by protecting profits, a lack of focus on high environmental and social impact, energy - and resource efficiency and may deepen inequality by ignoring the needs of low income families and local communities. These sectors tend to attract private investors naturally, meaning public finance is often used to derisk already profitable companies, rather than support transformative projects that are economically viable and deliver high social value, such as affordable housing, public transport, and community-owned renewable energy.

More specifically:

• The EIB doesn’t make any statements on whether the support for energy intensive energy companies will come with criteria to reduce fossil exposure, reduce energy - and resource use. Moreover, the European energy intensive industries have been highly profitable, but have rather paid out these profits in dividends then investing in decarbonisation. The EIB is also ambiguous on what kind of energy they will support, referring to ‘clean energy’ instead of just renewables.
• The support for energy grids is supposed to make energy more affordable for households according to the Bank, but it is unclear how this will happen. As our case study on the interconnector between mainland Italy and Sardinia shows in the Behind EIB’s Green Curtains report shows, grid expansion can also favor private sector speculative renewables bubbles which have detrimental effects for the local population. In general almost none of the EIB’s climate finance for renewable energy development specifically targets affordability.  
• Clean tech development does not clearly target positive environmental impacts, resource and energy efficiency, public benefits, geographical development, technology transfer in low and middle income countries.
• Support for raw materials creates huge risks for environmental impacts and human rights violations as the EIB’s standards are structurally flawed, as mentioned in a letter we sent to the Bank last year.
• The increase of equity investment does not come with an ambition for increased strategic control and ensuring contribution to strong environmental and social goals. Equity investment is rather being used as an instrument to take away further risk for the companies the EIB Group invests in. 

The president also highlighted a rapid expansion in security and defence financing, describing it as “perhaps the area where we have seen the biggest progress in the last year.” She celebrated the expansion of the EIB’s mandate to include pure defence projects, and noted the Bank would more than triple its defence-related financing to 3.5% of total lending in 2025, with a pipeline of 80 projects. A quarter of all additional financing this year will go to military spending.

This includes funding for: a Military infrastructure (e.g. a Bundeswehr base in Lithuania), defence manufacturing (helicopters, drones, repair centres), R&D in defence technologies (space, robotics), SME finance for defence supply chains, and private equity funds focused on security and defence.

This increase in military spending, especially the projects which only have a military use are highly worrying, which as we said in an earlier newsletter, are bad economics and worse ethics: Studies across Europe, the UK and US show that public services, green energy, and environmental protections create more jobs and economic growth than military spending. This support for military activities is in the end tied to government budgets to pay for the military infrastructure or pay contracts to the companies and will in all likelihood lead to a further increase of an already self destructive level of austerity. The EIB is also funding companies and banks that fund and deliver weapons to countries committing war crimes, such as a recent €500 million loan to Deutsche Bank to finance companies’ and government’s defence projects. The Bank has been repeatedly criticised for being complicit in what the International Court of Justice described as a plausible genocide in Israel’s  by funding companies delivering weapons and military equipment to the country. Even though Deutsche Bank can not fund weapons with EIB’s money, it can still be used for military equipment which can contribute to further escalation of these atrocities.

The president portrayed this as a pragmatic response to geopolitical realities, but offered no critical reflection on the ethical, legal, or environmental implications of this pivot, nor any mention of the growing militarisation of EU public finance or how this aligns with the EIB’s mission to promote peace, sustainable development, and respect for international human rights standards.

Beneath the polished narrative of progress lies a troubling disconnect between the EIB’s expanding ambitions and its accountability to the public it claims to serve. The message was clear: the EIB is growing fast, taking more risks, and playing a central role in EU strategic policy, but with minimal space for public accountability.

President Calviño concluded by calling the EIB a “true success story of European integration.” But for whom?

If the EIB is to be Europe’s climate bank, it must go beyond grid infrastructure and innovation tokens. It must end fossil lock-in, support just transition with social conditions, ensure all projects meet high environmental and human rights standards and put public needs ahead of profits. Otherwise, Europe risks building a green image on foundations of grey finance.