Former Romanian Finance Minister and the country's representative with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Mihai Tanasescu was named vice-president of the European Investment Bank (EIB), according to Mediafax newswire. He will be one of the eight EIB vice-presidents and will coordinate the bank's activity in Greece, Cyprus, Denmark, Ireland, Africa, Caribbean and Pacific countries and South Africa.

The European Investment Bank (EIB) is the European Union's financing institution. Its shareholders are the 27 Member States of the Union, which jointly subscribe its capital. The EIB's Board of Governors is composed of the Finance Ministers of these States. EIB signed EUR 4 billion worth of financing contracts for Romania between 2007 and 2011. In 2010, some 88% of the total EIB financing of EUR 72 billion went to projects in the EU.  The EIB is the largest international non-sovereign lender and borrower and raises the resources it needs to finance its lending activities by borrowing on the capital markets, mainly through public bond issues.

Mihai Tanasescu, 56, graduated the Economic Studies Academy in Bucharest and has several specializations abroad, at Ecole Nationale d'Administration (ENA) and Harvard Business School. He started working in Romania's Finance Ministry in the early 90s, and became Romania's representative at the World Bank in 1997. He was the Minister of Public Finances from 2000 to 2004. Tanasescu has been Romania's representative at the IMF since 2007 and he is also one of the three Romanians on the Trilateral Commission.

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