As at end of December 2021, 42 operations had been approved under the EPTATF for a total amount of EUR 37.3 mln; and 18 of them had been completed. Of the approved amounts, EUR 28.5 mln had been signed and EUR 21.2 mln had been disbursed (55%).
With the support of the 42 technical assistance assignments financed by EPTATF a total of 4.5 bln EUR EIB loan programmes have been generated by the end of 2021. If you combine the total financing for those projects the total amount of financing generated is 9.5 billion EUR. The disbursements on the EIB loans have during 2021 picked up speed and by the end of the reporting period a total of 1.9 bln EUR had been disbursed on the EIB loans representing a 44% disbursement rate.
The biggest sector for EPTATF operations is the water sector receiving 29% or 10.7 mln EUR, followed by municipal infrastructure and SME:s each receiving 18% of the EPTATF financing.
When it comes to country distribution the biggest recipient was Ukraine with 46% of the EPTATF financing or 16.8 mln EUR, followed by Georgia and Armenia with 19% and 10% of the EPTATF financing.
Following the evaluation that was completed 2020, the EPTATF Secretariat has developed a new results framework for the whole programme that also included a project level indicators that can be used to reflect on the aggregated EPTATF achievements. These did among other things include 18 aggregated indicators that will be presented in coming annual reports. Below three examples from the 2021 report are found:
1) Direct employment created: 30,098 man years
2) Length of sewer and/or storm water built or upgraded: 917 km
3) Energy-efficiencies realised: 136,000 MWh/year
Another development during the last year is the creation of a new branch from 1 January 2022 - EIB Global - that will take responsibility for all EIB lending outside the EU member states. A critisism of EIB during the latest 10 years has been that its business model is more adapted to lending within the member states. It is obvious that lending 50 MEUR to Stockholm Water is much different to lending 50 MEUR to Mykolayev Vodokanal, and one consequence of this is that EIB has now created a separate branch to deal with lending outside the member states. This will also mean that more EIB officials will be moved out to country offices instead of working from the Luxembourg HQ. A further consequence of this organisational change is that the Trust Fund Division has been moved to the Strategy and Partnerships Department under EIB Global.
Russia's invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022 has also affected the operations under this trust fund. The immediate effect on the assignements financed by EPTATF in Ukraine was that there was a suspension of all activities to begin with. After a few months when the situation had become more stable in the unoccupied parts of Ukraine, EIB has allowed assignments to continue on a case by case basis. The war in Ukraine will certainly have a negative impact on the EPTATF operations in Ukraine and also other EaP countries going forward.
One result of the situation in Ukraine is that EIB has been instructed by its owners - the EU contries - to step up its efforts to support Ukraine in this difficult situation. From that point of view EIB allocated an additional 1 bln EUR in lending to Ukraine in March 2022. This additional lending was covered by different EU gurantee instruments. Later in September EIB has proposed to mobilise an additional 1 bln EUR in lending to Ukraine on own risk. Given that the EIB Board approves this proposal these loans will be channelled to critical infrastructure (eg water and heating) and to critical logistics. In addition to these new loans EIB is also proposing to allocate 15 MEUR from own funds for technical assistance to support the preparation and implementation of these new loan programmes. These funds will become complimentary to the financing provided through EPTATF and underlines the need for EIB to have access to TA funds for Ukraine.
During the last few years there have not been any larger replenishments to EPTATF which means that the amount of unallocated funds have diminished. EPTATF net available resources on paid-in contributions as of 31.12.2021 were EUR 4.86 million at the same time as EIB has a long pipeline of potential new EIB projects that need TA financing. From this point of view EIB has urged the Contributors to make additional contributions to be able to sustain the necessary level of TA support to EIB lending in the Eastern Partnership region.
In view of this Sida made an additional contribution to EPTATF by 40 MSEK in October 2022. Additional replenishments were made by Germany and Lithuania and other donors are also reviewing the possibility to make additional replenishments.
Apparently the replenishments to EPTATF are not sufficient to cover the needs of EIB for technical assistance funds, which has increased in Ukraine in the wake of the Russian military invasion. Therefore there is currently a proposal in the EIB Board to make available up to 100 MEUR of EIB own funds to be used for technical assistance in Ukraine and Moldova.
