Wise Person's Panel report evaluating the EIB's external lending mandate

Counter Balance admires the extensive analysis that the Wise Persons’ Panel has undertaken of EIB lending activities outside the European Union, and particularly its willingness to begin to address the developmental impacts of that lending. There are many proposals put forward by the panel that can help European development finance begin to aid genuine development—as well as several that would in our view have the opposite effect.

Counter Balance comments come just as the European Commission tabled the proposal for EIB’s external mandate until 2013, and prior to the EIB’s own conference 'EIB lending outside the EU: a way forward', on 29th April, 2010 held at the European Parliament where CEE Bankwatch Network director Mark Fodor spoke alongside with Commissioner for Development Andris Piebalgs, EIB’s president Philippe Maystadt and Michel Camdessus, the former IMF chief and chairman of the review of the EIB external lending .

More information and programme are available here

The wise persons’s panel final report can be found here