UK risks losing billions in post-Brexit investment, warns EU development bank

European Investment Bank is likely to stop lending Britain vast amounts of cash for infrastructure projects once it leaves the bloc, the chief of the lender says.

Britain risks losing access to the European Union’s development bank when it leaves the bloc, adding to the economic harm caused by Brexit, according to Werner Hoyer, the bank’s president.

The European Investment Bank (EIB) lent Britain a record €7.8 billion (Dh31.83bn) in 2015, part of a UK loan book of almost €50bn. Projects funded over the past two years range from power generation and improvements at the port of Dover to social housing in Northern Ireland, according to the Luxembourg-based bank’s website.

“Not having any access to cooperation with the EIB one day will do great damage to Great Britain,” Mr Hoyer said.

As the prime minister Theresa May moves toward pulling the trigger on Britain’s exit, she is signalling her government will give priority to control immigration even at the risk of curbing access to the European single market. Mr Hoyer said the economic damage to Britain will be several times greater than that faced by the remaining 27 EU members.

Brexit risks cutting off UK access to the EIB, and the prospect of losing Britain as one of the bank’s shareholders creates uncertainty about funding for projects in other EU countries, Hoyer said. Unlike countries such as Germany and France, the United Kingdom does not have a state bank that funds development projects at home, he said.

“We need clarity relatively quickly as to how the UK envisages EIB lending activities in the run-up to its final exit from the EU,” Mr Hoyer said.

EU governments – the bank’s shareholders – would be right to ask “why they should approve projects at the bank’s board that commit us for 25 years while we know exactly that the UK will no longer be a member of the EU after three years”, he said.

While the EIB also lends to non-EU countries, beneficiaries such as Norway pay into the EU budget and have accepted the freedom of movement of labour, concessions the UK government has not been willing to make, Mr Hoyer said. To keep the EU’s bank from shrinking, other EU members are likely to make up for the 16 per cent share capital the EIB will lose when Britain pulls out, he said.

Follow The National's Business section on Twitter