Du Projet européen à l’Europe des projets: Soixante ans de présence et d’influence françaises à la Banque européenne d’investissement (1958-2018)

This article aims to better define the vectors as well as the objectives of French influence at the European Investment Bank (EIB), a European institution created in 1957 which annually mobilises a volume of funding equivalent to the Commission’s budget. For the main part, French influence was exercised individually, through the French members of the Management Committee as well as the French managers of the Bank, in a context where the French Ministry of Finance, which represents the French government at the Bank’s governing bodies, is sometimes reluctant, often inactive, and exceptionally proactive on new initiatives. Based on visions, models and experiences in which France retained a comparative advantage, this influencewas instrumental in the promotion of key policies in three areas: EIB finances and the promotion of a common currency, the financing of small and medium-sized enterprises and innovation and external mandates (Mediterranean and ACP States in particular). Over the past twenty years, successive enlargements, the erosion of France's comparative advantages and the decline of its linguistic and cultural influence have precipitated, as in the European Commission, the loss of an influence which had really started in the mid-1970s.