> What are the terms and rate of interest with the loans from these
> institutions (JBIC & EIB)? Are the loans more concessional than those of
> the WB?
Yup. The EU has no disciplinary arm equivalent to the IMF, thank the Gods. Loans are still not a great idea for peripheral countries, but the EIB gives you low rates, lengthy repayment/grace periods (e.g. 5 years of paying no interest on a 15-year loan). And if you ever have to default, you sit down with EU governments elected by an amazing innovation, unknown in the US, called the *popular vote*.
> I am not aware of a substantial loan program from the EIB outside of the EU
> and Eastern Europe (except for a small loan to Malaysia for a gas pipeline -
> I think), but please correct me if I am wrong. I am not even sure how much
> the EIB gives to Eastern Europe as a percentage of its total loans.
Data on the Mediterranean countries is at: <http://www.eib.org/pub/press/2002/2002-005.htm>. Data on SE Europe is at: <http://www.eib.org/pub/press/2002/2002-007.htm>. Eastern Europe: <http://www.eib.org/pub/accstrat_en.pdf>. The amounts might seem small, but these are significant investment inputs for the countries involved, due to their low per capita GDP.
> It should also be noted that the global South are not a bunch of beggars
Never said they were. They're the working poor of the world-system, locked into permanent debt bondage, who ought to unite and repudiate the debt entirely.
> think). Members of the IMF/WB have a right to access their own resources.
Trouble is, accessing those resources comes with a terrible price-tag: adopting toxic free-market nostrums which the rich countries have long since bothered to apply to themselves.
-- Dennis