Who could be the next president of the European Investment Bank?

Good morning. A scoop to start: Senior officials from the US, EU, Ukraine, and key non-western nations India, Brazil, South Africa, Turkey and possibly China are set to meet in Copenhagen this weekend for unannounced talks on Russia’s war against Ukraine.

Today, we survey the form card in the race to head the European Investment Bank, and hear why AI should run Europe’s future power networks.

Banker race

The European Investment Bank is something of a slumbering giant among EU institutions, with a half-trillion euro balance sheet and an unremarkable public profile. But the Luxembourg-based lender has a big role to play in highly charged areas such as rebuilding Ukraine, and backing new green technologies.

So the decision over who should replace Werner Hoyer, the German who has been its president for more than a decade, is proving to be heavily contested, write Sam Fleming and Javier Espinoza.

Denmark’s decision to promote Margrethe Vestager as its candidate shows that member states see the role as a valuable prize: Vestager is one of the highest profile commissioners in the current college, having made her name running EU competition policy for nearly a decade and levelling billion-dollar fines against tech giants.

Once she becomes an official candidate for the EIB job, the executive vice-president will have to take unpaid leave from her Brussels role. She will be running against former Italian finance minister Daniele Franco, who was nominated by Rome this month. 

Other candidates to have been announced include the EIB’s Polish vice-president Teresa Czerwińska and her fellow vice-president Thomas Östros, who was nominated by Stockholm. 

Another politician to watch as the contest hots up is Spain’s deputy prime minister Nadia Calviño, who has long been seen as a possible candidate for the job. 

Calviño has previously been linked with big posts on the international scene, having unsuccessfully pitched for the eurogroup presidency and the head of the IMF. 

The timing could be tricky, however, since she and her boss Pedro Sánchez are focused on preparing for snap elections on July 23, with their conservative opponents the People’s party building a strong poll lead.

Calviño, who has said Madrid will present its own candidate in due course, would be a formidable rival to Vestager. 

For some officials, it is high time that the EIB had its first female president. Finance ministers are expected to discuss the EIB succession in September at an informal meeting in Spain, which shortly takes over the EU’s rotating presidency.

A final decision by the EIB’s board will probably come in October, ahead of Hoyer’s departure in December.

Chart du jour: Closing loopholes

The EU agreed on an 11th package of sanctions against Russia yesterday after almost two months of debate. The upshot? Brussels can now ban exports of sensitive goods and technology to countries that are acting as middlemen to help Russia evade sanctions.

Power to the machines

The boss of Eon has a problem. Leonhard Birnbaum reckons artificial intelligence is crucial for Europe’s future electricity network to function. But, he tells Alice Hancock, the EU’s approach to AI “is a disaster”.

Context: the EU proposed rules in 2021 that set out different applications of AI and how they should be used according to potential risk. The legislation will be among the world’s most restrictive on the nascent technology, and managing critical infrastructure (which could include energy apparatus) using AI is deemed as high risk.

In the future, AI would be needed to replace grid technicians, said Birnbaum, who doubles as the president of Europe’s electricity industry trade body Eurelectric. “Baby boomers are reaching retirement age so . . . over the next decade I’m losing one-third of my most experienced technicians.”

“I’m training right now but I can tell you the demographics are crystal clear. I will not get the people so I need AI to make sure that I can still do my job,” he added.

The issue of how the EU manages and builds out its grid infrastructure is becoming increasingly acute with demand for electricity from renewables set to boom over the next decade. Industry executives have suggested that if the cost of all the investment was shouldered by customers, bills would have to go up 12 to 15 times, although Birnbaum said he thought it would be a fraction of that.

Grids in their current state are simply not ready for the huge increase in electrons through them nor for those electrons to flow not only from power plant to consumer but also from consumer back to the grid, thanks to the uptake of solar panels on homes, executives say.

Even if existing infrastructure was at maximum capacity, “we should not fool ourselves,” Birnbaum said, “we need significantly more assets”.

What to watch today

1. Summit for a New Global Financial Pact begins in Paris, from 9am.

2. Meeting of EU general affairs ministers in Stockholm, from 9am.

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