EU/EBRD Small Municipalities Finance Facility - Extension

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The EU/EBRD Municipal Finance Facility will be an extension of the current regional framework facility for municipal lending. The project will provide loans and risk-sharing facilities to Partner Banks in the new EU Countries and the EU Accession Countries for lending to small municipalities and utility companies. The European Commission would provide grant support to the project. The project’s objectives are to: The project is expected to generate transition benefits in the following areas: Commercial banks as Partner Banks. Municipalities, municipally owned companies and private companies providing municipal services will be the beneficiaries of financing for energy efficiency investments. For general municipal infrastructure investments, excluding energy efficiency, small municipalities with fewer than 100,000 inhabitants will be the beneficiaries of the sub-loans. EUR 90 million in the form of credit lines and/or risk sharing facilities. EUR 90 million. There are no environmental issues directly associated with the proposed facility. However, it would be instrumental for the selected municipalities to meet EU environmental standards and would assist the eligible countries in complying with EU standards as well as under international environmental programmes targeting protection of Baltic Sea, the Danube River and Black Sea. An Environmental Checklist has been developed for environmental appraisal of sub-projects by Partner Banks. All the sub-projects to be financed will need to be designed to comply with the national and EU environmental standards. Technical Cooperation will be funded by EC Phare to: Provide creditworthiness enhancement programmes for small municipalities; Improve local banks’ lending capacity in municipal finance, in particular for energy efficiency investments; Assist municipalities to identify potential for improvements of energy usage and to prepare energy efficiency projects for financing.