Читать книгу European Investment Bank Activity Report 2021 - Группа авторов - Страница 5

When faced with unprecedented crises and massive needs, there is no point sticking to business as usual. The response must be innovative. It must offer new solutions that point to a different future.

In 2021, the European Investment Bank confronted two great threats, the climate crisis and the coronavirus pandemic, even as the challenges posed by development grew more urgent. The EU bank tackled these hazards by thinking hard and moving fast — in new directions.

That might mean investing in an innovative company. Or creating an innovative financial tool to bridge the crisis period for firms that were healthy before the pandemic hit. But the first thought was always how to go at it in a different, more effective way — how to lay a new path that leads to a sustainable, green, inclusive future.

This report highlights our emergency response to COVID-19 through the unique European Guarantee Fund, as well as our support for healthcare companies working on cures and therapies for the disease. It illustrates the dimensions of our backing for companies that are forging new frontiers of climate action — sometimes right into outer space. It demonstrates our commitment to a better future for all Europeans in our cohesion investment and for all global citizens through our development work.

Innovation is the framework of the future. In its three main sections, this report lays out the kind of future we aim to build. It will be a healthy world. A green world. An inclusive world.

The rest of the report provides the context for these investments. From our president’s strategic thinking in the foreword to data on the Bank’s lending and borrowing and a look at the year ahead in the highlights of the Group Operational Plan.

The report tells the story of a crucial financial institution whose ambition is to help solve the problems we face now — inspired by a vision of a healthy, green, inclusive future.