By Toby McIntosh
The European Investment Bank has rewritten its process for handling complaints about access to information, providing complainants more input into the appeals process.
The new accountability policy still leaves final decision-making of disputes to the EIB management and Board. However, it retains a provision allowing appeals to the EU Ombudsman.
The changes were adopted as part of revision of the policies governing the EIB Complaints Mechanism (CM), the division within the EIB that handles a wide range of complaints about EIB actions, including its administration of the EIB access to information policy.
The modifications were welcomed by Accountability Counsel, a nongovernmental organization that follows independent accountability mechanism at many organizations.
“The policy is positioned to drastically improve outcomes for communities seeking to prevent, mitigate, or remedy unintended environmental or social harm enabled by EIB Group financing,” according to a statement by Accountability Counsel. “From a readability standpoint alone, it has streamlined the former policy and procedures to eliminate clunkiness and redundancy,” says the statement.
“Additionally, the CM’s advisory and outreach functions have also been strengthened,” the statement continues. “The most promising updates, however, have to do with the CM’s ability to deliver genuine outcomes and earn the trust of communities.”
Under the new procedures, after the CM issues its “Compliance Conclusions Reports,” other departments within the EIB, referred to as “Group Services” must develop “Service Response Action Plans” (SRAPs).
A new twist is that the draft versions of the SRAPs must be shared with complainants to help the CM assess the adequacy of proposed actions.
Accountability Counsel summarized the next possible stages in the process:
If the CM disagrees with decisions not to develop an SRAP, or if it finds that proposed SRAPs do not respond sufficiently to its findings or recommendations, higher managerial authorities within the EIB Group (i.e., the EIB Management Committee and/or the Chief Executive and Deputy Chief Executive of the European Investment Fund) will decide on the best course of action. The policy also allows the CM to report on the provision of remedy to the EIB Group Boards of Directors, as relevant.
The same structure applies to complaints concerning the EIB’s interpretations of access to information requests.
Also, Accountability Counsel wrote, “In a win for transparency, finalized SRAPs will be published along with Compliance Conclusions Reports on the CM’s case registry.” Monitoring reports will also be disclosed.
Still, Accountability Counsel voiced reservations, including a “serious concern” that the EIB Group’s Boards of Directors “will not have final approval over SRAPs to exercise true oversight of the steps taken to address non-compliance.” The Board “may remain apprised of situations, but the EIB “management retains final discretion regarding remedy, creating an oversight risk.
Process for Access Complaints Similarly Modified
Similar changes will apply to the CM’s handling of complaints about the handling of access to information requests.
In Paragraph 99, the CM is instructed to “promptly share” with the complainant both its draft Compliance Conclusions Report and the Group Services reply.
Eventually, the CM will submit three documents to the EIB Management Committee: the CM’s Conclusions Report, the Group Services’ response document and the CM’s views on the Services’ document.
However, comments by the complainant during the process will not be passed along in full. An EIB official told EYE, “Although this is not explicitly stated in the Policy, the document setting out the CM’s views can also include a summary of the complainants’ views.”
The EIB Management Committee may ask the EIB Group Services to review its explanation of reasons for not implementing the CM recommendations.
The EIB Board is not required to take any specific actions in this process. However, the CM will inform the Board of the outcome of such cases.
The EIB’s system of handling access to information appeals through its accountability mechanism is unusual compared to other international institutions. A variety of structures are used, but most typically a two-stage appeals process, with appeals going first to an internal body and later to an independent review Board.
Complainants in the EIB system will not be allowed to appeal to the EIB Board. However, the new policy (Paragraph 121) will allow dissatisfied complainants to take their cases to the EU Ombudsman.
The new policy became effective Oct. 1, 2026.
According to the CM’s 2025 annual report, there were five access to information cases in 2025.
Overall, there were 94 cases were handled in 2025 of which 62 were closed, with the rest held over. Of the 49 new complaints submitted that year, 21 were registered as admissible. Most admissible complaints (81 percent) related to the environmental and social impacts of EIB-financed projects.
In 2025, nearly twice the number of cases were lodged with the European Ombudsman, 13 complaints in 2025 compared to seven in 2024, the report says.
EYE Disclosure: Eye on Global Transparency has appealed several matters to the Complaints Mechanism and has two related complaints pending with the EU Ombudsman.
EYE’s appeals to the Ombudsman concerns documents about an international body established by multilateral financial institutions to share information on their loans, the GEMs Consortium. The EIB, serving as the Secretariat for the Consortium, rejected EYE’s request for minutes of a GEMs General Assembly meeting, relying in part the GEMs founding document, the “Cooperation Agreement,” which the EIB refused to disclose. EYE also appealed about the length of time the EIB took to respond. (See EYE May 13, 2026 article.)
