France 24 and RFI present. Hello everyone. Thank you for joining us for Here's Europe. Your magazine is brought to you by France 24 and Radio France International to discover the main actors of Europe. So after the fall of the wall, an institution was tasked with facilitating the transition to a market economy in Central and Eastern European countries. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. The EBRD is owned by the European Union, the European Investment Bank and especially 72 countries including Ukraine, Russia, China, the United States, it finances projects in 37 countries to the east, as we said, of Europe. And this week, we invite you to join us from London its headquarters, its president, a French president, Odile Renaud-Basso. Hello.
You were Deputy Chief Executive Officer of the Caisse des Dépôts, a large French public financial institution, and then various positions up to the European Commission. You know Brussels a little. In fact, since its creation in 1991, your bank has invested 210 billion euros and last year you even reached a turnover of 16.6 billion. In which countries first and what type of projects?
So, we invest in the countries of Eastern Europe, but also a country like Ukraine, countries of the former Soviet bloc in Central Asia, the Caucasus countries, so Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan and since 2000, the countries of the northern Mediterranean, so Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, but also Jordan and in the coming months, we will start investing in a few sub-Saharan African countries. More than 75% of our investments are in the private sector, financing local companies, local SMEs, either directly or through financial institutions, local banks, but also projects of foreign investors in these countries. And half of our investments have a positive effect on the environment, climate, reducing greenhouse gas emissions for example, and many of our investments, 45% of our investments, also have a component to facilitate the integration of women into entrepreneurship, support for women entrepreneurs or their participation in professional life.
You pride yourselves on investing in the green transition and gender-related projects. However, we know that the United States, which contribute 10% of the capital, are totally opposed under the Trump administration to any investment on these subjects that do not interest them, even repel them. Does that pose a problem for you?
So, we have just adopted our strategy, which was adopted by our shareholders, in which I think there is agreement that we must develop access to energy for all countries. And in energy access today, renewable solutions, the development of solar energy, the development of wind energy, are very competitive compared to other energy sources. So in fact, when we develop new investment projects, it makes a lot of economic sense to develop this type of project. Regarding the issues of support for projects for women, there too there is still a consensus among our shareholders on the importance of women's participation in economic life, the importance of inclusion and developing businesses, creating jobs also for women entrepreneurs. So there are topics for discussion with our various shareholders on the targets, the nature of certain investments, but there is still a very good consensus base on these priorities that I have indicated.
So, as I said in the introduction, the EBRD, your bank, was originally dedicated to developing, after 1991, the economic catch-up of Eastern Europeans left behind the wall for all those years, their transition to a market economy. Do you consider this mission to have been successful when you see the state of their infrastructure, the trend toward corruption and even turning to populist solutions? We think of the recent Romanian and Polish elections. Well, I think that we have had results, we are not alone, we contributed to a very important transition of these countries. I think that the accession process to the European Union, with the adoption of the acquis communautaire, the integration of European standards and the support of the European Union for transformation through European funds, has also been a very important element of convergence. When we see the convergence of Poland in terms of income per capita, economic development, etc., it is a remarkable transformation. Although there are political debates, political trends at work, we also note that these populist movements are not only in Eastern European countries. We see these trends also in Western European countries. And so I think there is always progress to be made in terms of corruption, functioning of markets, etc., but these are topics that can be found in other countries as well.
So first of all, what we do is effectively not subsidies but really investments. So for example, in Poland we have invested a lot in offshore wind projects but also support for Polish companies in various areas of activity. It could be pharmaceutical, it could be distribution, etc. So a lot of investments in private equity funds as well. And then why some countries will grow faster, develop more quickly than others? It depends on economic factors, demographic factors. It also depends a lot on the functioning of institutions, the starting state. I think that Poland had a more advanced economic potential from the start than Bulgaria. So there are countries that are more or less advanced in the catch-up phase. These are things we look at, we analyze to determine our priorities by country. For each country, we look at where it stands in terms of, for example, the framework for business law, transparency in economic activity, etc., to try to provide not just financing and fund projects but also provide support in terms of public policy to define how to improve the legal framework. For example, privatizing companies, facilitating the development of innovative start-ups and so how the general economic and institutional framework of the country and reforms can facilitate this type of development.
Odile Renaud-Basso, since the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, you no longer finance projects in Russia. But you finance Ukraine very widely, 7 billion euros in total, 2 billion this year. What type of project? And are all the financing countries of your institution in agreement? We think there are some more skeptical ones on Ukraine, Belarus, Turkey, or Hungary.
