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The main commitment of the European Climate Bank (EIB) as the Climate Bank is decarbonisation and support for green investments. This is what EIB Vice President Lilyana Pavlova said Lilyana PavlovaNikolova is Minister for the Bulgarian Presidency of the Council of the EU 2018.Rodin, who participated in the discussion "Green Transformation Financing in the CEE Region", part of the largest regional forum on Green Transformation, Innovation and Industries of Tomorrow - Green Week 2023, organized for the third consecutive year Dir.bg and 3E-news.

"For me, as a representative of the European Climate Bank and as a Vice President at the European Investment Bank (EIB), which deals with cohesion policy in the CEE region, the green transition is particularly important. We have a programme to mobilise one trillion euros by 2030 for this purpose. Now, however, things are conditioned by the accumulated crises and the topic of the green transition is becoming more and more relevant. The negative effect of the war in Ukraine, the disruption of the supply chain, the need to reduce dependence on Russian gas, create opportunities for the green transition, especially in Europe, said Lilyana Pavlova Lilyana PavlovaNikolova is Minister for the Bulgarian Presidency of the Council of the EU 2018.

According to her, the EIB is ready to increase support for the green transition and make the European continent carbon neutral. "Last year alone, we invested over EUR 19 billion in green transformation. euro. We also have a commitment to REPowerEU, on which we are working as the main funding institution. We will add an additional EUR 30 billion to the European Union. to what has been envisaged so far under REPowerEU in order to attract private capital, to mobilise our partners commercial banks, which will mobilise a resource of over EUR 115 billion. additional investments, key in the region, "explained Pavlova.

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Innovation is another element that she pointed out. "If we want to achieve the goal of carbon neutrality, we need to invest not only massively, but in new technologies and innovations. The innovations that exist today do not enable us to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. Only half are available - the rest are in development, test phase, etc. Therefore, the priority is to turn the focus to innovation and technology. The big problem in Europe, compared to the US and Asia, we are not the fastest in a quick investment in promising startups, and even if we do, as soon as they can raise resources and this investment grows, there is not enough fast available capital for already maturing, growing investments and innovators go most often to the US. We need to keep them in Europe. One such initiative is the EU Startup Initiative. Pavlova also recently highlighted the STEP initiative - an initiative behind which the EIB will be a key player."

According to an EIB study, there is a 10% increase in companies investing in green investments and decarbonization in CEE. In Romania and Croatia are the companies much more ready for investment in the sector, while in Latvia and Bulgaria the companies rank much lower in the relative share of businesses that realized the need for these investments. For companies in CEE compared to those in the US - 2% of European GDP less is investment in decarbonization and green technologies, which is a big missed opportunity. The reasons are uncertainty, lack of skilled labor, high energy prices, she listed.

Lilyana Pavlova

Investment

green economy

European Investment Bank

Decarbonization

green transition