All of a sudden, the EIB has shot to the top of everyone’s Christmas card list.

European Commission president Barroso is flagging the EIB as part of a European framework to deal with the economic crisis.

Industry commissioner Verheugen wants a EUR 40 billion “soft loan” package from the EIB to help the European car industry belatedly gets its act together on CO2 emissions (T&E comprehensively rebutted Verheugen’s “no subsidies” apologia on Wednesday, but no sign of a link to their release).

And UK finance minister Darling has been pushing UK banks to make the most of the EIB’s increased global loans facility.

Only you don’t hear mention of “global loans” in such coverage, but there’s a lot of money getting talked up, there are clearly a lot of needy SMEs out there - so let’s get the money out the door as quickly as we can, no messing about. Which sums up the way global loans at the EIB have been done for many years, as this new clip from Counter Balance depicts. The cartoon’s focus is on outside EU lending, but the same applies within the EU.

RELEASE!