The EIB delivers a first aid to Ukraine of 129 million

Brussels, March 10 (.).- The European Investment Bank has already made a first disbursement of 129 million euros to Ukraine within the 668 million emergency package adopted last week due to the Russian invasion and has approved a new strategy to finance European security and defense technologies and infrastructures with 6,000 million euros over the next six years.

The decisions were confirmed this Thursday by the board of directors of the EIB in a meeting in which it also approved 543 million euros for new investments in companies and clean energy, including 115 million for the Fira de Barcelona and 53 million for a hydrogen plant. green in Spain, according to the institution.

“Russia’s brutal and illegal invasion of Ukraine has driven more than two million people out of the country and created a humanitarian and security emergency unprecedented in Europe in recent generations. The EIB is rapidly deploying financial support to Ukraine to assist it with their urgent financial needs,” Bank of the European Union President Werner Hoyer said in a statement.

In an extraordinary meeting, the EIB approved a financial aid package of 668 million euros of which the first two payments have already been delivered, for a total of 129 million, and there are more disbursements planned in the “next few days”.

Specifically, this package accelerates the payment of two loans originally granted to Ukraine to support its agricultural sector and its SMEs, the agency said.

In parallel, the EIB has approved the new Strategic European Security Initiative, which will have an additional 6,000 million euros to “strengthen security and defense” by mobilizing investments in dual-use defense, research, development and innovation, civil security infrastructure and technologies toe caps

The strategy “reflects the new security challenges facing the EU with cybersecurity and emerging disruptive technologies, such as new space, artificial intelligence or quantum technologies, which create new vulnerabilities and threats,” according to the EIB.

It does not change, however, those sectors in which the EIB cannot invest, such as arms.

The approval of the strategy comes on the same day that the leaders of the Twenty-seven are holding an informal summit in France where they are expected, against the backdrop of the Russian invasion, to agree to “invest more and better in defense capabilities and innovative technologies” and “substantially increase defense spending,” according to the draft of the declaration that they hope to approve and to which Efe had access.

INVESTMENTS IN SPAIN

The EIB approved, on the other hand, 543 million euros in additional investments for Italy and Spain.

In the case of Spain, 115 million euros will go to “business innovation and expansion” of the Fira de Barcelona and another 53 million for a new large-scale green hydrogen production plant powered by solar energy “that will provide alternative clean energy for use in intensive industrial production”.

The EIB has not provided details of these operations, nor of which will be the beneficiary plant in question, since the agreements will be signed in the coming days, according to what a spokesman for the institution told Efe.

The remaining 375 million euros will go to two business support and clean energy projects in Italy.

(More information on the European Union at euroefe.euractiv.es)