 Good afternoon, and I'm very pleased to welcome you to this webinar at the Institute of International and European Affairs in Dublin. We're particularly delighted to be joined today by Carlo Monticelli, the governor of the Council of Europe Development Bank, known as the CEB, which is part of the Council of Europe family. Ireland, as you may know, currently holds the six-monthly presidency of the Council of Europe, and today's event is taking place on the eve of the CEB joint annual meeting, which will be held in Ireland, which makes it a rather special occasion on which to discuss the work of the bank. This webinar is part of the IIEA's global Europe project, which is supported by the Department of Foreign Affairs. And despite the fact that the EU and the Council of Europe are two very distinct entities, even if sometimes confused by the less well-informed, there are many values shared between the CEB and the EU, including democracy, equality, the rule of law, human rights, and work for refugees, which is a particular specialty. As a multilateral development bank with an exclusively social mandate, the CEB actively promotes social cohesion and strengthens social integration in Europe. The bank has a long pedigree, it was established in 1956. A year before the Treaty of Rome establishing the EEC entered into force in 1957, which was of course the predecessor of today's European Union. Considering the current context, social development has never been more needed in Europe, and the role of the CEB is more relevant than ever. Please join the discussion using the Q&A option on Zoom, which you should see on your screen. I think we're all pretty used to that by now, but you never know. Please feel free to send your questions in throughout the session as they occur to you and we will come to them once myself and the governor have finished our initial conversation. I should say that today's conversation and the question and answer session are both on the record. Additionally, I have to say it, please feel free to join the discussion on Twitter using the handle at IIEA. And we're also, as you know, most of you I think are watching. We're live streaming today's discussion and a very warm welcome to all of you tuning in via YouTube. Before we begin, Paul Ryan, who is the director of the International Finance and Climate Division of the Department of Finance, would like to say a few words of welcome. Paul, please. Okay, good afternoon to everybody delighted to be here delighted to meet my old friend. I'm Carl Monticelli, the governor of the Council of Europe Development Bank, and we've just come back from a very useful and interesting meeting with Minister Donohue. And indeed, the minister will be chairing the events over the next two days of the bank. The bank is one of our 15 monthly lateral development bank banks that are members of the member of, and this is the very first time we've had an annual meeting of any of these banks so it's a very important occasion for us and a very valuable occasion. We really appreciate the decision by the bank to come here, postpones this 2020, I need to see the governor here and all of the delegates over the next few days. The bank is Paris based it has 42 members and 46 members in general in the Council of Europe. So for Ireland, two key points that we have number one, the seven as we call it is one of the too much lateral development banks that provide funding to Ireland. The other one is European Investment Bank, and they have provided close to a billion euros over the last seven years. It would be an area of social housing, education, health, very particular niche areas that the bank does an extremely good job, fantastic skills, fantastic expertise with a great relationship with them. The money goes directly to the government, to local authorities and housing associations and the housing finance agency, etc. And the governor will go through some of that work in a minute. The second area then, which is important to Ireland and the ministry here, is that it basically underpins the key message of European integration and social cohesion at the Council of Europe, which is really important for us, pretty about our presidency for six months. Very important focus upon social infrastructure, social cohesion and the space persons which give rise to its funding back in 1956 with the Hungarian uprising. And of course, refugees. It's done a lot of work in refugees from North Africa that the Department of Finance provided some funding some six years ago. And also now obviously for Ukraine. Minister Dunin, who was just announced that the establishment of a one million euro fund for Ireland, Ukraine, and as a kickstart, much needed investment for refugees and displaced persons in Ukraine and therefore some of the neighboring countries. We would hope that the meeting will basically agree to membership of Ukraine for the bank. I think it's very important. And also that will then will make a lot of progress on a new capital increase for the bank to help Ukraine in the country itself, and then in the neighboring countries as well going forward for the next couple of years. The bank is always joke with the governor. It's one of our best kept secrets of multi lateral development banks, but the people who need to know such as governments, refugee, refugee agencies, financing agencies know it very well and work very closely with it as well. So it's a very efficient bank. It's only 200 people, but a very large outreach and as I say in relation to refugees to space persons does an excellent job and has a very heavy workload ahead in Ukraine in the next five years or 10 years or so. And we have the utmost confidence in the governor and the other people in the bank that will do a very good job there. So delighted the governor said delighted that the annual meeting has been here for the next two years and look forward to his chat for the next hour. I'll take you again over to your governor. I have a background about the governor before we start our conversation so Carla Monticelli was elected governor of the Council of Europe Development Bank on in June 2020 having served for six years as vice governor for financial strategy. He began his five year mandate in December of last year. Before joining the bank, Mr Monticelli worked for more than a decade at the Italian Treasury, representing Italy and international for institutions, including the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the African Development Bank and the European Bank for reconstruction and development so you are no stranger to this kind of work governor and once again welcome to Dublin and welcome to the Institute. Jay, kick off. Can I ask you just to give us a sense of what you see as the role and the values of the Council of Europe Development Bank today and what are your key priorities and goals at this point. Well, first of all, let me thank you for having me here. This is a key think tank for the debate in Ireland and I'm really proud to be here and have a chance to discuss with you what the Council of Europe Development Bank does for Ireland for social cohesion in Europe and moving forward for for Ukraine. The banker was was established as Paul Ryan was saying, six, six years ago to take care of refugees. And then it has a start to its mission to our throughout its life. Supporting integration and social cohesion through projects to this effect and now with the refugee crisis coming from the terrible war in Ukraine, its values, the help that he can provide to refugees and internally displaced people are a mission that is as relevant as ever. It's perhaps a sad commentary on the current state of affairs that indeed the issue of refugees in Europe, unfortunately is as relevant in 2022 as it was in 1956. How has the bank been able to respond to the war in Ukraine, and how will you deal not only with the with the refugees but the longer term consequences of this horrible war. One of the key feature of the bank is its effectiveness and agility, possibly as a result of this of its size. So we were among the first ifys to intervene on the ground supporting the refugees at the moment of emergency. And we did that, also supporting the hosting community. Now, moving forward, we with the session of Ukraine, we will be able to operate in Ukraine itself, providing immediate relief to internally displaced persons and looking moving forward we're thinking about the don't don't in challenges of reconstruction. We will be there to help with our expertise, which is focused on the key social sector health education and social housing. And there we have a particular expertise to offer with skills that have been owned during our intervention in the post the Yugoslavian war environment. And so we believe that we have really something special to bring to the table of the international effort to help Ukraine. Practice, how do you, how do you identify the projects do you do you rely on local authorities do you do that yourselves. How is the how is the money dispersed, how does it. Important to maintain an active and focus dialogue with local authorities. At the end of the day we do want our projects to be owned by by the by the authorities. Then, once the project is is well defined, we are very quick in defining a flexible financial structure that is going to meet the needs of the borrower even from this point of view. And, mind you, we are very open in the type of borrowers we can serve it can be central governmental local authorities agencies with a specific social mandate. And we really interact very closely with with with our counterparts. And this is where we see, then sometimes the this collaboration is very quick, very effective because you need to be to to tango and let me say the projects that we had in Ireland, really went very well because of the quality of the administration, and the quality of people that that we had the like to interact with in other countries, challenges arose and our ability to persevere and making sure that proges are implemented right is one of the other achievements of the bank we are very proud of. And how I mean, do governments or local authorities have to propose the projects that is there is there is there is there a formal procedure. I mean, the formal procedure is, you know, with a formal request going through the Council of Europe. But before getting there, there is the interaction that sometimes is quite quick because the needs that come to us are already expressed in a well defined process. Other times, the reason the process of making this is the jargon to making the process bankable, so the project bankable. I, but I, and this sometimes take effort take a joint effort, especially to find ways to mitigate the risk that we can that we can afford, because of course, especially when we have local authorities or borrowers that for some reason or another do not benefit from state guarantee, then we have to find ways to arrange the soul, the financial structure in a way that is mutually mutually viable. And as I said, this might take time, but something that we are very proud of, especially come let me say in comparison with our sister institution, so to speak, is the fact that we are very, very flexible. I mean, let me make you an example, you know, the way the capital is going to be paid, you know, of course, we offer the standard, you know, linear standard installment every every year, but we are very flexible in having different different structures with the grace period that say to meet the needs of a particular budget cycle. And is it typically 100% funding or do you do you co finance with. We have a standard limit of 50%. Okay, this is standard across the multilateral development banks. And so there is somebody co financing, be it the borrower itself, be it another, another multilateral in some special circumstances, this percentage can be lifted up to 70 or 80% and this is what is indeed what happened during the COVID crisis during the coverage crisis we once again were very quick, very effective we were, I would say the very first institution to this burst. And they are even the exceptionality of the of the crisis, we will leave that this percentage to to 70 or even 80%. And what kind of projects were you funding related to the COVID crisis. Well, these were, of course, mainly in the health sector. And these were really a wider range of intervention. There were, in some cases, just to finance the first purchase of emergency supply, like the equipment for nurses. But then he turned out that some of the basic infrastructure were deficient and the crisis just show that. So some medical equipment was a finance and sometimes even the enlarging of hospital facilities. And Paul mentioned that and you've touched upon the work you do in Ireland. Can you can you give our audience a sense of what kind of projects you've funded here. Well, we have a variety of sector. The most important one is the social housing sector. And, well, I don't need to tell this audience how important and political relevant is this is this issue. And this is something where we have put a lot of our of attention and effort and I don't want to be boring, but it was really important. The quality of the interaction that we we had in this type of projects to deliver and to deliver fast. We had then quite important programs in supporting employment and employment creation through the financing of small and medium enterprises and we did this through the National Promotional National Promotional Bank. But then we also add other other projects for example we finance a prison. In a way we are the only international financial institution that finances prisons and this might seem kind of an oddity, but instead deeply resonates with the value of human rights that must be upheld in any circumstances that are at the founding values of the Council of Europe, which is ultimately our matter institution. Let's turn to another subject. There's much discussion in the banking world and particularly in the multilateral banking world about climate change sustainability green finance. How is your bank responding to these new challenges. This is a very important challenge that and nobody can ignore it. But we want to maintain to maintain our focus on the social sector and this is the reason why we look at the issue of climate change through the lens of the social climate nexus. So what do I mean, I mean that ultimately if we look at the consequences of climate change, the most vulnerable are those who are going to suffer most, and we already see that. Our idea is to focus our intervention to this lens and then consider the help we can provide to this issue in any of our of our projects. For example, something that we often do in various countries is to finance the improvement of public buildings, schools. Just putting anti seismic safe. In that event, then we would finance also the retrofitting to improve the quality of in terms of energy efficiency and thus giving our contribution. We are the climate bank. We would not say finance field of solar panels. It is in our mandate, but when assessing the project to prioritize them, the contribution that they can give to the fight against climate change is certainly one of the top parameters that we we refer to. You have worked extensively in your previous Italian responsibilities with other multilateral development banks. What kind of cooperation and coordination does the CEB have I mean, we mentioned your the European Investment Bank, which is the EU instrument, but do you exchange views with the multilateral development banks more generally. We really want to be part of the club. So to speak, there is even an informal group that is meeting twice per year at the margin of the Washington. It is called ads of MDBs and this is an informal exchange. I mean, we had a joint press communique when the war erupted to show our joint solidarity and our willingness to cooperate. So there is a constant exchange of views that translate into joint operation and joint collaboration on the field whenever it's appropriate and effective. There are cases in which the synergies are quite obvious. Just going back to the example of the 50% limit, they would be important, it is important for the borrower to find a co-financer and so we collaborate with other multilaterals in this. In other circumstances is more parallel financing or finding the cooperation on intervention that are in the same area, but using the different instruments that characterize the institution. For example, the EBRD has a key instrument, the participation in risk capital for enterprises. We do not do equities, but yet, say in the health sector, there might be well projects with a high social value that would benefit from synergistic intervention of loans and equities. We are delighted to work together and this is indeed what I believe is going to happen in the reconstruction of Ukraine where we are going to first cooperate in exchanging information and then on the field just according to the specific project. Of course we can always look forward to the moment when we can talk seriously about reconstruction in Ukraine when the war is finished, but it is going to be a massive project when you look at the scale of the damage which has been done, of course, in the first instance to people and people killed and injured, but also how I think destruction of property and infrastructure. How will that be coordinated in terms of identifying the priorities and how to move forward I mean of course the Ukrainian government I suppose will have its own ideas but absolutely I mean I think that the scale of the intervention are just mind boggling. But it is clear that certain key priority must be owned by Ukrainian people. Just to give an example, there will be areas that where people will not be able to just go back to their homes, then where will be placed these people who cannot return to their homes. This is simply, this is certainly a decision that is needed up to the Council of Europe Development Bank, nor to any other multilateral it will be the people the government to decide. So this is a type of priority that we will receive from the government. Then there will be other areas of intervention that once again in broader terms will be indicated by the Ukrainian administration. But finally, there are areas where the priorities will be jointly determinated through the interaction of the views of Ukrainian people and our experience in terms of effectiveness type of intervention, Necessity to have a transparent process in doing certain things. So, for broader terms, first the Ukrainian people, then a joint collaboration, and then we will have to roll up our sleeves and get the work done. I remember when the collapse of the Soviet Union and there was a lot of assistance offered in the first instance to Poland and Hungary. And I remember talking to several of the ministers in those countries saying they were overwhelmed with visits from well intentioned people from different member states, different countries, different banks. And they said they were slightly lost in trying to figure out how to make all this work in the best way. So I imagine the system has improved a bit since those days. At the same time you see, when you have players with a far wider mandate and an arse, then for a minister in charge, it might be difficult to decide whether it's more urgent, electric grid or motorway. We will be talking about schools, hospital and social housing. So in a way, even from this point of view, the interaction with the Council of Europe Development Bank should be easier so to speak. I'm now going to turn to questions from our audience. I'll start with our live audience here in its North Grid Georgia Street. Who would like to ask the first question? Yes, please. You might like to introduce yourself. Just wait one moment, Brian, till we get the microphone. Sorry. I caught alert. Loot by surprise there. Good. So, okay. So, yeah, Brian Daly, I'm a board member here in the Institute. Thanks for your thoughts so far. My question was two, two fold if I can. One, are they is the financing provided on commercial terms, relative comparative to two other institutions. And secondly, the organization, as was referred to earlier, isn't exactly very well known. Is that an issue or do you think that's important for the organization to become better known so that the benefits of what the Council of Europe is doing through the development bank are actually better known in society or in in the countries in which the funding is provided. Thank you for your question that helped me to clarify two very important points. The first, the first one is about the terms, the financial terms of our loans. We benefit from a very good rating which allow allows us to tap international financial markets at very, very low. And we transfer these very low rates entirely to the borrower with just a minimal markup to pay our electricity bills at the school. So, the, our loans tend to be well, well below market rates that countries would face if they were to borrow directly. Being little known is the way the way I see it. Okay, we are a well hidden secret but to be a little known certainly is not, is not good for a variety of reasons. I mean, it's frustrating not to have enough people appreciating the good work that you do is also sometimes you know clipping the way of potential collaboration to just people don't know that and this is certainly one of my priorities to go to go ahead in my, you know, in my tenure as a government. So, I'm working on it. My name is keep this job I'm a researcher here at the IEA. I hope you might doors to questions, if that's okay. Okay, we'll let you we'll let you get away with it. So the first question I had, which is about the effects of the Syrian refugee crisis on social cohesion in Europe. wondering if Mr. Marcelli had had if there were any specific lessons that we could have learned from the CEB, learned these specific lessons from what happened Syrian refugee crisis. And my second question is, with the reconstruction of Ukraine, how will the CEB balance the need for a quick reconstruction with the need for transparency and accountability, especially since corruption is known issue in Ukraine. Thank you. Okay, well, challenging question and like, like all good questions are. And now, we learn a lot from the refugee crisis. And I think the two were the key lessons. But the first one is that when you have a refugee crisis, you need to be careful in providing what refugees need, not what you think they need. And from this point of view, our partnership with the IOM was really, really crucial. This is where we started to to work closely together. They have been instrumental to have our grants being spent, being spent well, in a good, in a good way. And indeed, they are really our major partners now in the in the Ukrainian refugee crisis. The second lesson important that we learned is that to facilitate integration, the acceptance on a longer term of the inflows of refugees and migrants, it is absolutely important to make the social investment that is needed to ease the strain on social services of the hosting community. So you have refugees that are most welcome. Then when people realize that as a result of the number of refugees, they have to queue for longer in the emergency room of the local hospital. Well, so it is important to just to bring up the standard, the the social infrastructure. And the second question about you corrupt corruption and oh, yes, sorry. Yeah, you're right. Now, this is something that where I hope we can really provide value added banking on the experience that we had in the Western Balkans after the Islam, where we had to deal with projects in countries with limping governance. Let me put it this way. And we've learned to be perseverant and to stick on our guns in making sure that certain rules, especially about procurement are met. Otherwise, money are not dispersed as simple as that. And this might seem trivial, but it is not at all. And alas, in some cases led to delays in the implementation of the projects that are alas very center because it is the population, the beneficiaries of the project that are suffering. But I think that this was an important contribution to have people understand the importance of following the rules of transparency, the rule of rule. And I think that this has done a lot to enhance our reputation in the international international community, just for our perseverance in making sure that no corners are cut with respect to certain basic rules of transparency and accountability. Thank you. Any other questions in the room? Sorry. And thank you, Governor. It's great that you're here with us at the IIA. A quick question, but I think it will afford a it's not a straightforward answer. Beyond what you've spoken about my way of trying things, things like the precious worn grain climate change. What are some of the other major challenges that the bank is currently grappling with that perhaps you think citizens and policymakers should be thinking about more? Well, you see the social cohesion is at the heart of democracy. Well, let me put it so bluntly and directly. And it is a retent, particularly in this moment of a post COVID recovery that has enhanced social inequalities, especially in the access to basic social services. Think about the digital divide, which implied that as a result of the distance learning during the lockdowns, you had disadvantaged children who simply did not have a well functioning computer at home. They became even more disadvantaged because they might have lost two years of school. And I am I'm making this a concrete example, but this kind of issue really are covering very, very many, very many areas. And this is where fulfilling our mandate can really make make the difference directly in supporting the most vulnerable and indirectly through this support in giving a concrete contribution to cope with the political challenge of stopping the populism. Because at the end of the day, once again, I mean, you have in political science, as you know, very many differences, sorry, very many definitions of populism. But the characteristic is to give falsely simple answers to very difficult questions. And to avoid this temptation to go to falsely simple answers, some basic needs must be met. And this is where the bank can help. Yes, please. Thank you. Mary McCauhey, I'm from the EU agency, which is based here in Ireland, Eurofant. And just to follow on a little bit from Barry's question, we actually serendipity launched the results of our most recent survey across the European Union. And one of the main findings from that survey, which has been looking over the last two years, is that trust in institutions across the European Union has really plummeted during this period, during the pandemic, and now of course, during the period of the war. And I suppose really speaking a little bit to the social cohesion. What would you say we could do to try and boost trust to improve those levels of trust? Because that plays very much into what you've just been discussing there about the polarization of society, social unrest, unrest, disengagement, and all of the things that we are working towards trying to address when we talk about social cohesion. I mean, this question would require a very articulated and difficult reply, difficult from a political point of view. Because ultimately, you need political leadership to let people understand that certain issues are difficult, and require deploying very many policy instruments. But the simple answer that I would give is to get back trust. The answer is for the institutions and the political system to deliver. Deliver the lead. At the end of the day, if we go, if we look at the across political system and electrosy, we see that whenever you have the electoral system, or if you will, the voting system that really ease up the focus on what somebody in office has delivered. But then see what they got and see what they didn't get. Now, again, according to the scale of the problem, delivering in a clear way becomes more difficult. But this is where the art of politics, let's call it this way comes in, because clearly, in many cases, there are also conflicting priorities. And this is where a mediation has to come, but a mediation that is a compromise that as they say, it makes everybody unhappy, but everybody can live. Let me give you two questions from our online audience, which I think are sort of related. So Sarah Blake asks the following. It appears that there is almost an infinite list of projects, which the Council of Europe Development Bank could be asked to address from offering assistance to displaced persons to funding social housing. How does the bank choose between projects, all of which are urgent and greatly needed? Is there a values based reference framework, which it applies? And then Duran O'Brien from the Department of Foreign Affairs asks, and this is related, will the bank's upcoming focus on Ukraine detract from the bank's ability to continue funding essential projects in other member states? Okay, let me take the first question. We do have a system of scoring, internal scoring, about the impact that our project can give. And this has metrics having to do with the social impact, with climate change, with the contribution that it gives to gender gender equality. So this is quite a powerful, a powerful way to establish priorities. Then another important element is for a bank to have a balanced portfolio in terms of risk and also geographical dispersion. I mean, one of the tenants of banking is to make, to make sure that risk is diversified. And this is something that of course we must follow and we do. So the prioritizing is in a way when these two guidelines are followed is not that difficult. Clearly what is difficult, and we go back to the second resource is where you draw the line. And this of course depends on the size of our financial resources. And this is why, as Mr. Ryan was saying at the beginning, we are in the process of discussing our shareholder, the need to shore up our capital endowment to be able to make sure that our meaningful engagement with Ukraine, the reconstruction, the refugees that will stay outside Ukraine, that this essential engagement does not crowd out other important projects that crowd out our contribution to the social cohesion in our member states. Do you have a quota system? Is there a limit or guaranteed amounts for each member of the Council of Europe? Or is it is it balanced out over time? But what do you mean in terms of a contribution to the capital share? No, no, no. Well, I might be interested to hear about the contribution. I imagine that that is some kind of key. Yeah, absolutely. But I'm thinking more in terms of receiving funds. No, no, no. I mean, we do not have a system of quotas at all. I mean, if you look and compare, you know, the quota in capital and the quota in the portfolio, they might be quite, quite different. So the balance is more about risk diversification and also on the basis, on the basis of demand. And this is anyhow, something that applies over time. So it is really quite rare that we just say no, this is this is impossible, especially because where we already have large exposures, as a result of having large exposure, we have also have a large reflows. So, you know, with the reflows, with giving back the capital borrower, these freeze up resources to be to be reinvested in the very same country. The Council of Europe is probably best known for the for the human rights and the European Court. And during O'Brien, again, from DFA, Robert of Foreign Affairs has asked, does the the bank have funding to try to complement the work of the European Court of Human Rights in member states, for example, granting loans for improving judicial institutions? We do, we do in this, but this is where we want to see the end of the ownership of countries in implementing these volumes. So I was quoting the case of prisons before, and you know, the important of making sure that the human rights are respected even in these circumstances. We do have funds available. And this is one of our priorities, indeed, to support the amelioration of just buildings that were justice, the justice process that takes takes takes place. But no, it is quite important. And I mean, with some of the colleagues in the Council of Europe, you know, sometimes I have to make this point quite quite clearly that, you know, we are a bank. We give very good terms, but money that are to be given back in very exceptional circumstances. In crisis time, we do offer grants. But we are not a grant giving institution, because we have to make profits that make us sustainable. And most importantly, just contribute to increase our capital base, which is necessary to increase the scale of our of our of our operations. So indeed, we can be an instrument of implementation of the values of the Council of Europe. How much we do that ultimately depends on the on the borrowers. That maybe leads to another question from online, which asks, is there a conditionality mechanism attached to recipient loans by the by the bank, such as it was done by the EU with Poland to help to make sure that the fostering of and respective democratic values. We do not have any macro from each other. We are not the World Bank. We are not the European Union. We have a very straight conditionality related to the specific project with finance. So we do not finance budget. We do not finance the country, the local authorities, we finance the program. And we want to make sure that the money are spent for that particular, for that particular project. And this we have an effective system to make sure that this is the case. And, you know, it is not necessarily, you know, cumbersome, it is not bureaucratic, but effective, really to make sure that money go where they were supposed to go. Very good. We have a question here from one of our researchers, Alex Conway, who wants to ask, how does the Council of Europe Development Bank ensure their project's credentials are really as green as they claim to be and to avoid greenwashing? Okay. Well, this we have in our team of experts, engineers, that would look, would look, would look at this green credential to make sure that the project has the as green as they claim, as they claim to be. But more generally, I would just want to flag the point that for us, the department of technical assistant and monitor monitoring plays a quite important role, both ex ante in making sure that the project we finance are a impact and exposed to see that project were just implemented, they were supposed to. And notwithstanding our small size, we do have an evaluation office, which would then when the project is concluded, and it has deployed its effect, do a kind of a post mortem to make sure that what it was promised to deliver, it has been delivered, so as to learn lessons for for the future. So we do, we do have this system in place. And given that you, you are talking about greenwashing and also social washing, let me move for a moment on the other side of the balance sheet of our liability side, because we do not issue green bonds, but we do issue sustainable bonds in the terms of social inclusion bonds, that are bonds that are of the sustainable family. And make sure that the proceeds raised with these issuance are going to finance a project that our social inclusion. Now, to do that, we have duties of reporting our our activities that follow the the rules of the International Association of ECMA. And I am very proud to say that the quality of our reporting is much higher than what other issuance do because of our process of selection, because of the greenwashing and social washing is is also happening on the liability side with many issuance claiming that their bonds are green. Do you have failed projects? Do you claim money back? No, we cast the council projects, which are or we interrupt projects. And this this happened, this has happened. It is disappointing. It is frustrating. But we believe it that it is sometimes unavoidable. And it is necessary to establish to establish credibility. We have this is I mean, like you mentioned, we have an incredibly good track record in terms of repayments. In all multilateral development banks, because of their preferred credit to stages, have very, very good repayment much, much larger than commercial banks. This is quite natural. But for us is really quite amazing, you know, in the years of our life, we have issued some 65 billion nominal terms. And over 60 years here in this amount of money, we had only one impairment for one million to an Icelandic bank that was triple A at the time when we so. But apart from that, never. So you know, imagine is a zero and you need very many other zeros before you reach the one. That's very impressive. I give another question from Brian. Governor, just be interested to be talking generally, specifically about the Council of Europe Development Bank, and we've referred to other development agencies. If you had the capacity to kind of look at the way in which they're operating and recommend changes to the mandates, the scale, the way they operate, the way they interact, in light of the global challenges that have emerged in the last number of years. Are there things you think that need to be done with the development agencies within the development agencies, in order to make a step change, or are they actually largely delivering pretty much to their mandates and the mandates are fine? I mean, this is a very broad question, which has to be ultimately answered by shareholders. And we have that in the G20, a group that has been exactly doing that, looking at the mandate and looking at the efficiency of new local resources. The work is undergoing. Something that shareholders in general want all the time is more coordination, more effectiveness. And to improve coordination is, if you will, a never ending challenge. Absolutely. At the same time, if we step back one second and look at the development in the last 15 years, or 10 years, multilateralism has received very many challenges. In multilateral developments, I believe, have been a bulk work of multilateralism, showing that multilateral institution fundamentally, and they did. Now you're asking, could I have delivered more? Of course, yes, they can always deliver more. But do I see major pitfalls that require an immediate redressing? Thank you not. And indeed, if I look at the result of that study, of course, there are important, useful direction, guidance, but nothing is really requirement and overall of the system. So the only grade has not been reached yet. But I think that's all in all, the multilateral development banks are moving in the right direction. And the border has been must have been successful. Because if you will look at the great financial crisis, we had a rebalancing of global power in various way, and an offspring of the great financial crisis has been the creation of yet other two development banks, the new development banks and Asian infrastructure investment bank. So after all, this type of business model, this type of institution must not be too bad. That's a very good note on which to end, Governor. We've run out of time. It's been a delight. Thank you so much for joining us and sharing with us the work of the bank and your thoughts on its future development. We wish you a successful meeting tomorrow and a successful mandate over the next five years. Thank you so much indeed. Thank you very much for having me. It has really been a pleasure to exchange with such a distinguished audience in presence and from remote virtue. And thank you for those who joined us online. Thank you very much.