The European Investment Bank Group has approved €17.4 billion in new financing, including an €800 million loan to upgrade a reactor at Romania’s Cernavodă nuclear power plant and support for improving Ukraine–EU border crossings.
The package was authorised last week in Luxembourg by the boards of the European Investment Bank (EIB) and the European Investment Fund (EIF), the EIB disclosed.
Of the total, €3.7 billion was committed for projects intended to reduce Europe’s reliance on fossil fuels and support the energy transition.
The energy funding includes support for electricity networks in Belgium and Spain, wind farms in Germany and solar generation in France.
The €800 million loan will fund refurbishment and life extension work on Unit 1 of the Cernavodă nuclear power plant, one of two reactors at the site. Cernavodă generates about 20% of Romania’s electricity.
The financing covers key component replacements and system upgrades to enable a new operating cycle for the reactor.
“The EIB Group is financing … projects for Europe’s security and autonomy, bringing affordable energy to households and businesses,” EIB Group President Nadia Calviño said.
Border crossings and business finance
The EIB Group also backed financing for upgrades to border-crossing points along roads in Ukraine that form part of the EU’s Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T) — a set of major transport routes designated by the EU.
The work includes terminals, customs equipment and digital systems.
Separately, the EIB Board agreed to double a programme for pan-European securitisation lending to €6 billion, the EIB Group said.
Securitisation is a way of packaging loans together so banks can free up capacity to lend more.
The new approvals also include financing for wind energy in Egypt, solar power and electricity grids in Tunisia, and sustainable agriculture in Moldova.
