The European Investment Bank’s Werner Hoyer has put forward his ambitions for a new European development bank.
In an opinion piece for Project Syndicate, Hoyer said: “An EU development bank would have an immediate, significant, and resource-efficient impact.
“The new institution would bring a coordinated, transparent, and European approach to development financing that so far has been sorely lacking.”
According to Hoyer, the new bank wouldn’t usurp the current multilateral banks. Instead, MDBs would be able to participate in the new set up, adding that “its role would be to give the EU a stronger voice on issues where member states share a common ambition that is not sufficiently considered at the global and regional levels, such as supporting societal resilience in fragile countries and promoting climate action”.
Admiring other initiatives around the world such as China’s founding of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the China Development Bank, as well the strengthening of the US International Development Finance Corporation, Hoyer said the EU “needs to speak with a clear voice – as other global powers do already”.