The Luxembourg-based European Investment Bank. It is owned by EU member states and has discretely grown into the largest multilateral borrower and lender in the world, with capital of €275 billion. (Photo: Adriana Homolova)

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The discreet banker of Africa development

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EU & the World

by Adriana Homolova, Laurence Soustras and David Santiago Tarazona Patarroyo, LUXEMBOURG,

There is a cold wind whistling a tune through the flagpoles that stand at the entrance of the headquarters of the European Investment Bank (EIB). Accompanied by the quiet humming rhythms of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg’s traffic, the glass building does its best to look unassuming.

After all, discretion has always been a highly-prized quality of the Luxembourg financial industry.

And it seems that, over the last decades, it has perfectly suited how the EIB wants to appear: a qui...