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Abstract

The Mediterranean region is currently the only one without a dedicated multilateral or regional bank. Since 2002, only a special window at the European Investment Bank (―EIB‖), the so-called Facility for Euro-Mediterranean Investment and Partnership (―FEMIP‖), has operated in the Mediterranean basin as part of the European Neighbourhood Policy and the Union for the Mediterranean (―UMP‖). Recently it has been argued that creating an international development bank focused entirely on Mediterranean issues and problems is among the most effective ways of enhancing investments and productive activities in the poorest countries of the Mediterranean region, and it was within this framework of understanding that, just over a year ago, a proposal for a Mediterranean Investment Bank was advanced by the Euro-Mediterranean Parliamentary Assembly. This article will critically evaluate the proposal as well as other proposals, alternative or complementary to the intervention of the EIB on the southern shore of the Mediterranean through the FEMIP. The analysis will necessarily be preceded by a concise evaluation of the work done by the FEMIP since its founding date to the present, as well as by a discussion of the main successes and shortcomings of the EIB as an institutional distributor of financial, external and technical aid to the southern Mediterranean countries.

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