The Council of Europe Development Bank (CEB), established in 1956, is the oldest international financial institution in Europe. CEB aims to promote social cohesion and to foster social integration in Europe by providing finance and technical expertise on projects with high social impact to its member states.
CEB has long standing ties with Cyprus dating back in the early 1960’s. Since then, this business relationship has intensified and CEB has been a solid and reliable partner of Cyprus. By virtue of its social mandate and its excellent long standing cooperation, CEB has helped Cyprus in facing many challenges at very critical periods of our history.
Cyprus became a CEB member in 1962, but began to borrow substantial sums after the devastating Turkish invasion in 1974. Ever since, CEB had been the largest source of external financing for projects in Cyprus, until the pre-accession period 2001-2004 when the European Investment Bank increased its activities in Cyprus.
To date, Cyprus is among the ten largest borrowers of CEB, and has had 34 loan requests approved with a total value of more than €2 billion for social and development purposes, covering mainly the areas of construction and rehabilitation of public infrastructure, education, protection of the environment and aid to refugees.
