Baku, Azerbaijan, July 9
By Leman Zeynalova – Trend:
Any activity of the European Investment Bank (EIB) in Iran would require a decision of the governing bodies of the EIB before it could be considered, the bank told Trend.
“The European Commission has proposed an update of the EIB's External Lending Mandate that would make Iran eligible for investment activities by the EIB. This enabling measure does not however commit the EIB to actually support projects in Iran. The same applies to the decision of the European Parliament to grant the EIB the capacity to invest in Iran,” said EIB.
EIB President Werner Hoyer has said that the EIB is not the right tool to support investment in Iran.
“A prerequisite for our business model is that we should remain a solid and credible institution on the international capital markets, and this would be incompatible with ignoring possible sanctions against Iran,” he added.
EU lawmakers gave approval for the European Investment Bank (EIB) to do business in Iran.
“We are granting the EIB the capacity to invest in Iran if suitable projects are found,” Siegfried Muresan, a lawmaker from the center-right European People’s Party (EPP), which led the preparatory discussions on the Commission’s proposal, told Reuters.
US President Donald Trump announced on May 8 that Washington was walking away from Iran’s nuclear agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which was reached between Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council - the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China - plus Germany.
Trump also said he would reinstate US nuclear sanctions on Iran and impose "the highest level" of economic bans on the Islamic Republic.
Since the US withdrawal from the nuclear deal, European countries have been scrambling to ensure that Iran gets enough economic benefits to persuade it to stay in the deal. The remaining parties have vowed to stay in the accord.
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