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Library picture: Alexander Stubb of the European Investment Bank (centre) speaks with Johan Van Overtveldt, Belgian federal finance minister (left), and Jeroen Dijsselbloem, then president of the Eurogroup, during a meeting of EU finance ministers in Luxembourg, 9 October 2017. Stubb said in a German newspaper interview this week that the EIB could help bridge the EU budget gap after Britain quits the EU. Photo: European Council 

“We will help to ease the pain of Brexit,” Alexander Stubb, EIB vice president, told the Sueddeutsche Zeitung in an article published on 21 March.

The EIB, based in Kirchberg, is the EU’s economic development bank. Although it raises funds in the global capital markets, it is backed by explicit EU member state guarantees.

The European Commission estimated that Brexit will leave Europe with a hole of €10bn-€13bn, the German paper reported.

Stubb said raising the percentage of the EU budget used as guarantees from 3% to 5% would increase the EIB’s lending capacity from €4.8bn to €7.8bn.

“It would be too easy to say we could fill the Brexit gap” completely, he told the Sueddeutsche Zeitung, but the EIB could help reduce the funding pressure.

Such a change would require approval by EU member state governments and the European Parliament.