The European Investment Bank has said it may change its rules to allow Britain to remain a shareholder after Brexit.
Britain is a 16 per cent shareholder in the European Investment Bank, which last year backed £5.5bn of projects in the UK including an extension to the Northern Line on the London Underground and the capital’s new sewer.
Only EU member states can be EIB shareholders but Werner Hoyer, president of the EIB, said at a press conference in Brussels that he did not rule out the possibility of changing the rules to allow Britain to remain a shareholder even after Brexit — an option that would need approval from London and the other 27 EU capitals.
“If there is — at the end of the day — an option to change that statutorily and allow a former member of the EU to remain a shareholder of the bank it is completely open . . . We should not exclude any possibility. Don’t prevent or pre-empt. We are committed to doing business in the UK and the UK will remain a shareholder for at least the next two years.”
Mr Hoyer said the Brexit decision came as a “terrible shock to the bank” and that its impact on the EIB was completely “unclear”. He said that, contrary to other large EU states, Britain has no national promotional bank and “relies heavily” on EIB funding for investments in infrastructure and other projects.
“We will be missed in the UK if we had to reduce our business there or disappear completely,” Mr Hoyer added
In the past decade the EIB has lent more than £40bn to UK hospitals, railways, wind farms, universities, social housing and a string of other projects.
All of the EIB’s existing projects in Britain — many of which involve 20- or 30-year contracts — will be honoured, including those signed during the next two years that Britain is a member.
Mr Hoyer acknowledged that if the UK withdrew from the bank it would have to negotiate with shareholders and that would be a “difficult endeavour”. He said the process would probably be discussed at the end of the Brexit process rather than the beginning and that this could leave the bank in “limbo”.
“There is a strong pipeline of projects in the UK and the UK is expected to remain a shareholder in bank and there is no need for bank to pre-empt that decision,” he said.
About 10 per cent of the EIB’s lending goes outside the European Union, providing an alternative path for Britain, the bank said. The amount is likely to be much smaller than if Britain was allowed to continue to be a member, however.
Last year the EIB provided more than £5.5bn for a record number of UK-based projects, compared to £5.6bn in 2015. New financing agreed in 2016 represented the second largest annual engagement since the start of EIB lending in the UK in 1973.
In separate comments the EIB said it would maintain a target of investing about $20bn a year to fight climate change over the next five years, sending a warning to climate sceptics.
Climate investment is already about a quarter of EIB total loans. Last year the bank lent €83.8bn, of which €19bn went to projects to counter climate change.
“We, Europeans, must lead the free world against climate sceptics,” Mr Hoyer said.
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