EIB Group Approves Climate Bank Roadmap, €400m Initiative for Global Access to COVID-19 Vaccine

The Board of Directors of the Luxembourg-based European Investment Bank (EIB) yesterday adopted the EIB Group Climate Bank Roadmap 2021-2025 and approved €400 million for the COVAX initiative to ensure global access to a COVID-19 vaccine.

The Climate Bank Roadmap will guide future EIB financing to support €1 trillion of climate action and environmental sustainability investments by 2030 and align all financing activities with the principles and goals of the Paris climate agreement by the end of 2020.

The EIB approved €7.8 billion of new financing to support investment by business impacted by COVID-19, alongside backing clean transport, sustainable urban development, renewable energy, health and education investment across Europe and around the world. This includes €400 million for the international COVAX initiative to ensure fair and equitable access to successful COVID-19 vaccines in Africa and scale up vaccine manufacturing in 92 developing and emerging economies alongside dedicated financing to help tourism companies impacted by the pandemic.

EIB President Werner Hoyer commented: "The EIB Group is proud to have backed BioNTech, the German company that achieved a breakthrough in COVID-19 vaccine research this week. An effective COVID-19 vaccine is now within our reach – a truly historic achievement that has resonated globally. Now it is crucial that vaccines become available throughout the world, not only in rich countries. This is why it is so important that the EIB has today approved support for the COVAX initiative to ensure access to a successful COVID-19 vaccine in developing countries”.

He added: “But COVID-19 is not the only crisis on our hands. The climate and environment emergency is claiming lives as we speak and we must face up to it urgently. Today we agreed the EIB Group Climate Bank Roadmap that details our €1 trillion response to the climate emergency in the years ahead. It is a major contribution to Europe’s role leading the way toward decarbonisation and a green, resilient and socially inclusive economy”.

The EIB approved €1.8 billion for medical research, new hospitals and public health investment and local lending schemes to strengthen private sector reliance to the economic shocks of COVID-19.

Since the outbreak of the pandemic, the EIB has approved more than €27 billion of new financing to enable public and private partners across Europe around the world to better tackle health, social and economic challenges.

Meeting by video conference, the EIB Board also agreed projects to improve sustainable transport, urban development, clean energy, access to water and education across Europe, Africa and Asia.