Jobs, innovation and environment: new EIB Strategy to meet Mediterranean challenges

Finance Ministers of the EU and the Mediterranean partner countries gathered for the 13th ECOFIN/FEMIP Ministerial Meeting in Athens on the 1 April, during which they confirmed their support to the European Investment Bank’s new 2014-2020 roadmap for the Mediterranean region – a strategy which will “allow us to extend our activities in favour of job creation, innovation and the environment for a more prosperous future for the younger generation”, in the words of Philippe de Fontaine Vive, the EIB’s Vice-President in charge of FEMIP (the Facility for Euro-Mediterranean Investment and Partnership).

Ministers discussed some of the main challenges and opportunities for sustainable growth and investment in the Mediterranean region. The EIB presented its new 2014-2020 roadmap, which outlines a more structured and proactive approach to sourcing and supporting operations in order to ensure that the new FEMIP is optimally equipped to meet the changing needs and priorities of the Mediterranean countries on the route to transformation.

The European Investment Bank (EIB) is the EU’s financing institution and the leading financial investor in the Mediterranean region through FEMIP (the Facility for Euro-Mediterranean Investment and Partnership), which was set up in 2002. Supporting economic and social development while improving the citizens’ living conditions has been the EIB’s objective in the Mediterranean partner countries since 2002. Since the democratic uprising of 2011, the EIB has provided more than €3 billion of support to the real economy in the Mediterranean partner countries, focusing on key sectors such as energy, SMEs, industry, infrastructure and social housing.(

Source: press release from European Investment Bank
http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_BEI-14-76_en.htm