Bank

On Monday, the Council decided to maintain lists linked to the Al-Assad regime, but approved the lifting of wide-ranging sanctions on key industries such as the energy, transport and financial sectors.

European Investment Bank president Nadia Calviño said Ukraine was “our top priority right now,” adding that the bank and Ukraine had signed “agreements to mobilise around €1 billion in investment in the public sector and in the private sector.”

“There is a new idea which I like: a rearmament bank,” said Radosław Sikorski, Poland’s minister of foreign affairs.

Earlier this week, Trump slapped tariffs on Canada and Mexico, only to put them on hold a day later, after the governments in both countries promised action to improve controls at their respective border with the U.S.

European stock markets extended a multi-session winning streak following President Trump’s speech in Davos. While the banking sector led broad gains, energy stocks remained under pressure.

The EIB, the largest multilateral lender, will double its funding for defence and security from €1 billion to €2 billion by 2025. Its group president defends a proactive approach to both sectors within the bank’s remit. “We are not a defence ministry,” she said on Thursday.

From February 2021 to September 2023, consumers reported almost 3,500 cases of alleged IBAN discrimination on the ‘Accept My IBAN platform’, mostly in France and Spain, accounting for 31% and 21% of all cases respectively.