C. Redmond,
It seems to me that what the EIB lends is pretty much chicken feed. Chase Manhattan Bank had $176 billion in loans, $400 billion in total assets, $11 trillion notional oustandings in derivatives, more than $350 billion in U.S. loan syndications and god-knows-what in securities underwriting in 1999. Although Chase is the leader in a few of these fields, it's only one bank. Unless I'm reading the numbers wrong, the EIB is not anything like the "funding arm" of the EU.
peace