Brown calls on EIB to help east European economies

Britain's Prime Minister Gordon Brown urged the European Investment Bank on Wednesday to play a larger role in helping east European economies deal with the recession brought about by the financial crisis.

Writing in the Financial Times, Brown said both the EIB and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development needed to make emergency funds available in the same way that the IMF and the EU itself have done in recent months, providing an extra 125 billion euros ($175 billion) in financing assistance.

Laying out his plan, Brown said he had asked the president of the EIB to consider three proposals:

"First, the EIB should increase its lending to businesses and for critical infrastructure projects, including energy projects, by 50 billion euros over the next two years, making more and better use of its existing capital," he wrote.

"Second, the EIB must be enabled to accelerate the rate at which it is lending to businesses; and third, the EIB should take on greater levels of risk to support businesses and jobs across Europe."

The prime minister said he was calling on the bank, which has more than 160 billion euros in capital and disbursed more than 48 billion euros in 2008, to accept a bigger share of the risk when lending with its banking partners, "including through a new loan guarantee instrument", which he did not define.