Assessing projects and programmes for cohesion policy at the EIB.

The assessment of the technical, economic and financial quality of programmes and projects is one of the day-to-day activities at the European Investment Bank (EIB). The paper explains how this task is approached within the EIB, how some of the tools of cost-benefit analysis are employed, and how this approach may evolve during the forthcoming programming period of the Structural Instruments. Some of the recent initiatives of the EIB – in particular RAILPAG, the guidelines for project appraisal in the rail sector and JASPERS, Joint Assistance to Support Projects in European Regions - take a particular relevance in this context and are briefly explained