Chapter 6 Small words, big changes

Deciphering the European Investment Bank: History, Politics and Economics examines the European Investment Bank (EIB), the European Union’s financial institution and the largest lender and borrower among the International Financial Institutions. Since its establishment in 1958, the EIB has developed without becoming front-page news and has remained highly invisible. By putting together 14 chapters that analyze topical and meaningful moments and aspects of the bank, this edited book offers the first comprehensive analysis of its origins and its evolution in terms of its mandate, governance, structures, policy activity, and performance. Written by acknowledged experts from various disciplines, the chapters weave together history, economics, law, and political science to provide a multidisciplinary examination and capture the complexity of the EIB. The book is a timely initiative for understanding the EIB, whose role has been ever increasing for contributing to the recent global economic challenges, including the economic and financial crisis, climate change, and COVID-19 pandemic. The chapters are written at a level which will be comprehensible to undergraduates in economics, history, and international political economy. It will also be a valuable source of reference for academics, policy makers, bankers, and other practitioners interested in regional development banks and their role in the global economy

Using Business Models in Hindsight

Purpose: Develop a method for an extended “fore-and-aft” use of business models. The method will turn them also into potent business history tools, in addition to being valuable forward planning instruments. Approach: Business models can be used to understand organizations by studying them as “snapshots” at any given time or accounting for their evolution by comparing their past successive forms on a temporal axis. The paper proposes a method of evolutionary analysis, which, by following a historical institutionalism approach, identifies “critical junctures”, organizational change and business model revisions. The evolution of organisations can be deciphered by comparing the business models at these “critical junctures”. Findings: The method has been tested in two international financial institutions. Value: There is no similar approach and use of business models. The method can serve scholarly purposes and business applications

Chapter 6 Small words, big changes

Deciphering the European Investment Bank: History, Politics and Economics examines the European Investment Bank (EIB), the European Union’s financial institution and the largest lender and borrower among the International Financial Institutions. Since its establishment in 1958, the EIB has developed without becoming front-page news and has remained highly invisible. By putting together 14 chapters that analyze topical and meaningful moments and aspects of the bank, this edited book offers the first comprehensive analysis of its origins and its evolution in terms of its mandate, governance, structures, policy activity, and performance. Written by acknowledged experts from various disciplines, the chapters weave together history, economics, law, and political science to provide a multidisciplinary examination and capture the complexity of the EIB. The book is a timely initiative for understanding the EIB, whose role has been ever increasing for contributing to the recent global economic challenges, including the economic and financial crisis, climate change, and COVID-19 pandemic. The chapters are written at a level which will be comprehensible to undergraduates in economics, history, and international political economy. It will also be a valuable source of reference for academics, policy makers, bankers, and other practitioners interested in regional development banks and their role in the global economy

The European Investment Bank's 'Quantum Leap' to Become the World's First International Climate Bank

In November 2019, the European Investment Bank (EIB) announced its 'metamorphosis' into a 'Climate Bank.' Associated with the EU’s Green Deal, presented a month later, the EIB claimed to be the first international climate bank and a front runner in the EU’s priority climate agenda. The EIB is mandated through the treaties to support EU policymakers. However, with its 'makeover,' the EIB also announced the launch of a new climate strategy and energy lending policy, ending fossil fuel financing after 2021. It is thus valuable to examine the question of whether the EIB has developed into a policymaker, and if so, how this can be best understood. In exploring this question, this article follows a principal-agent approach, attempting to discern the rational interests behind organisational rhetoric and posits that the EIB's claimed transformation hints at a type of policymaking activism, exploiting a policy window to serve the EIB’s rational interests in a strained political and market contest. This represents a paradigm shift in the EIB's institutional behaviour and rhetoric within the EU governance constellation and is, in fact, in this sense a 'quantum leap' as suggested by the EIB. However, it remains to be seen if the bank's metrics will prove a bold departure from their current activity or simply another adaptation to a policy field of intense interest to the EU, as has occurred on several occasions in the past

Information Systems Development Methodologies: A Review Through a Teleology Approach

The information systems analysis and design methodologies devised at the outbreak of the third industrial revolution shaped the systems analysis discipline and have trickled down to all systems, influencing most aspects of human development. To cope with the explosion of digital technology, these methodologies had to be developed rapidly, drawing from a wide range of theoretical backgrounds, based mainly on the "hard" scientific method and the "softer" systems approach. In the run-up to Industry 4.0, with multiple information systems emerging, reflection on systems’ design fundamentals is important. Intended to serve human activity and well-being, information systems are anthropocentric. Their success lies in their ability to serve human goals. Information systems analysis and design methodologies play a role in this by ensuring the best match between what is sought from systems and what they deliver in terms of the systems’ underlying final cause, or "telos". The paper investigates the teleological orientation of four founding systems analysis and design methodologies. Using the Wood-Harper and Fitzgerald taxonomy in order to identify the conceptual origins of the four methodologies under review, it categorizes and subsequently incorporates them into an extended taxonomy, assesses whether and how they are devised to cater to the incorporation of goals, and explains the inferred results based on the taxonomy. The paper posits that the founding information systems analysis and design methodologies do not have a marked teleological orientation and do not dispose of techniques for adequately incorporating systems’ goals. Doi: 10.28991/HIJ-2021-02-04-09 Full Text: PD

Chapter 1 A bank, not a fund

Deciphering the European Investment Bank: History, Politics and Economics examines the European Investment Bank (EIB), the European Union’s financial institution and the largest lender and borrower among the International Financial Institutions. Since its establishment in 1958, the EIB has developed without becoming front-page news and has remained highly invisible. By putting together 14 chapters that analyze topical and meaningful moments and aspects of the bank, this edited book offers the first comprehensive analysis of its origins and its evolution in terms of its mandate, governance, structures, policy activity, and performance. Written by acknowledged experts from various disciplines, the chapters weave together history, economics, law, and political science to provide a multidisciplinary examination and capture the complexity of the EIB. The book is a timely initiative for understanding the EIB, whose role has been ever increasing for contributing to the recent global economic challenges, including the economic and financial crisis, climate change, and COVID-19 pandemic. The chapters are written at a level which will be comprehensible to undergraduates in economics, history, and international political economy. It will also be a valuable source of reference for academics, policy makers, bankers, and other practitioners interested in regional development banks and their role in the global economy

Chapter 1 A bank, not a fund

Deciphering the European Investment Bank: History, Politics and Economics examines the European Investment Bank (EIB), the European Union’s financial institution and the largest lender and borrower among the International Financial Institutions. Since its establishment in 1958, the EIB has developed without becoming front-page news and has remained highly invisible. By putting together 14 chapters that analyze topical and meaningful moments and aspects of the bank, this edited book offers the first comprehensive analysis of its origins and its evolution in terms of its mandate, governance, structures, policy activity, and performance. Written by acknowledged experts from various disciplines, the chapters weave together history, economics, law, and political science to provide a multidisciplinary examination and capture the complexity of the EIB. The book is a timely initiative for understanding the EIB, whose role has been ever increasing for contributing to the recent global economic challenges, including the economic and financial crisis, climate change, and COVID-19 pandemic. The chapters are written at a level which will be comprehensible to undergraduates in economics, history, and international political economy. It will also be a valuable source of reference for academics, policy makers, bankers, and other practitioners interested in regional development banks and their role in the global economy

Restrictive or expansive? European Investment Bank's challenge to equipoise climate finance with post-pandemic boost

peer reviewedPurposeUnique among European Union (EU) economic governance entities and multilateral banks, the European Investment Bank (EIB) possesses a dual nature, as an EU body and a bank. The EIB has been ever evolving to adapt to policy and market developments and to reflect the geo-economic landscape. In 2019, in association with the EU's Green Deal, the bank announced its metamorphosis into a “Climate Bank,” ending its fossil fuel lending after 2021. Additionaly, upon the outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and its attendant health and economy crisis, EU decision-makers have solicited the bank to support both urgent needs for tackling and countering the spread of the disease and the post-pandemic economic recovery. Nevertheless, devastated economic actors in need of assistance fall within many sectors, including some less green ones.Design/methodology/approachThis article is grounded on agency theory for developing a generic stakeholder framework, which is then subsequently applied in investigating the EIB, in interaction with its main stakeholders.FindingsThis article investigates the EIB stakeholders in pursuing these two seemingly contradictory objectives of exclusively restricting its activity to green funding and expanding its action for achieving a broad impact in the real economy. By exploring this tension, the article argues that by prioritizing the post-COVID restart, the EIB risks to deviate from its strict green commitment.Practical implicationsThe analysis of the EIB's divergent stakeholder stances demonstrates some ambivalence in future EIB activity in an effort to equipoise climate finance with a post-pandemic boost. The same ambivalence might equally occur with other major economic governance actors. The stakeholder framework developed and applied in the case of the EIB can be useful for studying also the stakeholder dynamics of other organizations.Social implicationsThe analysis demonstrates a tension between selective climate-related funding for “building back better” and the need for a wide broaching of countercyclical stimulus, with implications for economic and social actors alike.Originality/valueThe approach is novel, as it develops a new analytical framework for understanding stakeholder dynamics and tests it empirically on the EIB. This constitutes the first study of EIB stakeholder management

European Integration and the Peripheral Disparities in Greece. The way ahead

As the main initiatives in economic and regional policy in Greece focuses on creating favourable conditions for general economic growth and innovation rather than regional redistribution and cohesion, the future of the peripheral areas is largely a local concern and to an increasingly degree depending upon European co-operation and initiatives. Recent studies point to the fact that there has been a convergence in terms of economic development between the countries in the EU during the last two decades. However, simultaneously with the reduced economic disparities at a national level, there has been increasing disparities between regions within countries. Not surprisingly, it is the European capital and metropolitan regions that display the strongest economic growth, while the peripheral and largely rural regions are lagging behind. As a consequence, there has been an increasing spatial polarization in the EU-27 countries. At a policy level, the EU has had its primarily focus on the objectives of economic growth and competitiveness (the Lisbon Strategy) and sustainable development (the Gothenburg Strategy). However, in 2004 the European Commission’s Third Cohesion Report, identified territorial cohesion as a additional strategic policy objective. The instruments for achieving the objective of territorial cohesion is the co-ordination of Regional Policy with various sectoral policies and initiatives. The principle of territorial cohesion has been pushed strongly by the Conference for Peripheral and Maritime Regions (CPMR), founded in 1973. One area where CPMR has been particularly active during the last years is on the initiative taken by the European Commission concerning a future EU Maritime Policy, which has been out for public consultation as a Green Paper between June 2006 and June 2007. Undoubtedly, Greece is attempting to achieve the EU policy objectives of economic growth and competitiveness (the Lisbon Strategy) and comply with the principles of sustainable development (the Gothenburg Strategy). In doing this, Greek regional policy, as in most of Europe, has undergone a significant shift from being based on direct economic subsidies to the creation of favorable conditions for development and growth. In terms of organization it is also evident that new structures are put in place, which on the one hand strengthens activities at the regional level, and on the other hand secure channels for carrying out governmental national policies. However, while the emphasis on growth and competitiveness is clearly the guiding principle in the Greek economic and regional policy, the issue of territorial cohesion is not addressed explicitly

The European Investment Bank as a force of Paneuropean integration:the case of South-Eastern Europe

South-Eastern Europe has experienced falling or stagnant economic activity in the past decade. War and civil unrest, and the geographic characteristics of the region have been clearly one of the main reasons. A further key element of the economic stagnation, however, is the low level of saving and investment in the region. These are respectively only one-half and two-thirds of the figure seen in the more successful transition economies in Central Europe. Without hinting that the low level of savings and investment is necessarily the determining factor behind the poor economic performance in the region, being a financing institution, the EIB will concentrate on the latter. Following a sharp initial decline in output at the outset of this decade, many countries in South-Eastern Europe have failed to show the kind of rebound observed in the more successful transition economies. When compared with the more successful transition economies, and indeed with other fast-growing middle income countries, South-Eastern Europe has a very low investment ratio, mainly due to low domestic saving. The best means of raising private saving and investment levels in this environment is to raise corporate profitability. Corporate saving -- the internal financing of corporate investment from retained earnings – overcomes the problem of low household saving rates, dysfunctional financial intermediation and lack of credit risk information. This is the crux of the matter: inducing higher growth requires raising investment, both in physical capital (infrastructure) and human capital formation (health, education, etc). Although, such deficits (which incidentally are a normal feature of economies which are trying to catch up or ‘converge’ with higher living standards elsewhere) are not sustainable if largely financed by debt-creating capital flows, the European Investment Bank, as the EU bank, able to provide better lending conditions than what local economic agents, including Governments, would be able to obtain on the market, has played a key role in the region’s reconstruction and development