The Council of Europe Development Bank (CEB) is the oldest international financial institution in Europe, founded as Social Development Fund to the Council of Europe. It was created with the signing on 16 April 1956 of a Partial Agreement among the Council of Europe member states and was transformed into a bank on 1 November 1999. The CEB shareholders are countries that are members of the Council of Europe. The Republic of Bulgaria has been a member country of the CEB since 28 May 1994. The size of the subscribed capital of the Republic of Bulgaria is 1.140% of the bank's capital.

The governing bodies of the CEB are the Governing Board and the Administrative Council. The Governing Board is the supreme body of the financial institution and consists of a chairman and one representative for each CEB member country. Bulgaria’s representative in the Governing Board is the permanent representative of Bulgaria in the Council of Europe in Strasbourg. The Administrative Council consists of a chairman and one representative for each CEB member country.

The CEB is a multilateral development bank with an exclusively social mandate. It is financially independent and the bulk of the credit resources is ensured on international capital markets through bond issuances. Through the provision of funding and technical expertise for projects with a high social impact in its member countries, it actively promotes social cohesion and strengthens social integration in Europe. The CEB represents a major instrument of the policy of solidarity in Europe. It participates in financing social projects, responds to emergency situations and contributes to improving the living conditions of the most disadvantaged population groups. The bank mainly finances state projects, projects of local authorities and banks as intermediaries.

The CEB contributes to the implementation of socially oriented investment projects through three sectoral lines of action, namely: inclusive growth: working to guarantee access to economic opportunities to ensure a prosperous future for all; support for vulnerable population groups: helping to integrate the most vulnerable citizens to nurture a more diverse society; environmental sustainability: supporting a liveable society that promotes environmental sustainability, mitigates and adapts to climate change.

The activity of the CEB in Bulgaria started in 1996 and is related to the financing of projects in the areas of healthcare, environmental protection, construction of housing for the Roma population in Sofia and Plovdiv, support for refugees, as well as financing of commercial banks for the implementation of projects to support the creation and preservation of jobs in micro-, small and medium-sized enterprises. The CEB has partially financed the implementation of the National Programme for Energy Efficiency of Multi-Family Residential Buildings in Bulgaria, by providing a state-guaranteed loan in 2015. In 2016, to support the absorption of funds from the European Structural and Investment Funds, the CEB extended to Bulgaria a Structural Programme Loan for co-financing of the projects implemented under the EU funds for the period 2014-2020.

Information about the financing provided by the CEB can be found on its website at https://coebank.org/en/project-financing/how-access-ceb-financing/.

 

The address of the CEB’s headquarters in Paris is as follows:

Council of Europe Development Bank

55, avenue Kleber

75116 Paris, FRANCE

Tel.: +33 (0) 1 47 55 55 00

Fax: +33 (0) 1 47 55 03 38