United Kingdom: Wheatley secures £185M in landmark – EU deal to build and improve homes

Wheatley Group unveiled £185 million of new funding from the European Investment Bank (EIB) to help build and improve thousands of affordable homes across Scotland.

The landmark deal was announced in Glasgow by EIB Vice President Jonathan Taylor at a community event attended by Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon MSP and tenants, staff and apprentices from across Wheatley, along with local politicians and business, community and social housing leaders.

It takes the amount of funding raised by Wheatley in the past four years to £800M and comes in the week the group was confirmed – for the second year running – as the UK’s largest builder of social-rented homes. Wheatley is progressing an ambitious building programme, from 2015 through to 2025, of 7500 affordable new homes from Balloch and Dumbarton through Glasgow, West Lothian and Edinburgh to North Berwick.

The EIB loan, by far the largest of its type made in Scotland, is linked to a commitment by Wheatley to invest £400M over the next three years in affordable housing. This also includes refurbishing existing homes to meet new Scottish and EU energy-efficiency standards, helping tenants cut energy bills, and housing and integrating refugees into Wheatley communities.

Wheatley Chair Alastair MacNish said: “This loan is fantastic news for people and families across Scotland and is a huge vote of confidence in Wheatley and our unyielding commitment to affordable housing.

“It will help us to consolidate our position as the UK’s largest builder of social-rented homes, which we hold close as a badge of honour at a time when the availability and supply of affordable housing is such an acute priority.”

Speaking at the funding announcement at the Reidvale Neighbourhood Centre in Gallowgate, Glasgow, where GHA, part of Wheatley Group, is building 143 homes, Jonathan Taylor, EIB Vice President, said:

“New investment in social housing is crucial to increase the number of affordable homes and cut heating bills in existing properties. The European Investment Bank supports social housing investment with leading housing associations across Europe and is pleased to back transformational investment here in Scotland by Wheatley, the largest housing association in Scotland and the largest builder of new social housing in the UK.

“This week’s visit to Glasgow provides a valuable opportunity to see how upgrading existing properties and construction of new social housing will improve lives, create skilled jobs, benefit local suppliers and cut heating bills in homes for hundreds of families.”

Wheatley has completed almost 1900 homes over the last three years and is building or planning up to 3000 more on 60 sites across Scotland. The new £185M EIB loan, along with future investments, will enable Wheatley to maintain a building programme of around 650 homes a year from 2021 to early 2025.  

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said:

“Ensuring people have access to quality housing is a fundamental part of building a fair and equal society. That is why we have committed to deliver at least 50,000 new affordable homes in the five years to 2021.

“Wheatley Group is vital in helping us achieve that, having delivered almost 1,900 new affordable homes across Scotland over the past three years and the additional funding from the European Investment Bank will help them build on this. It is also another reminder of how Scotland benefits from the EU and its institutions.”

Wheatley has completed almost 1900 homes over the last three years and is building or planning up to 3000 more on 60 sites across Scotland. The new £185M EIB loan, along with future investments, will enable Wheatley to maintain a building programme of around 650 homes a year from 2021 to early 2025.  

Wheatley Chief Executive Martin Armstrong said: “The EIB loan enables us to expand our ambitious building programme further in support of Scottish Government’s More Homes Scotland agenda.

“But it is about so much more than simply bricks and mortar. Wheatley’s mission is to make lives, not just homes, better. This wonderful investment by EIB will enable us to do just that.”

Over the last decade, the European Investment Bank has provided more than £4 billion for transport, education, social housing, transport, water, energy, urban regeneration and new hospital investment across the Scotland, with additional investment from UK wide programmes.



Annual accounts 2017

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Russia: EU prolongs economic sanctions by six months

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The EU sanctions in response to the crisis in Ukraine explained

On 5 July 2018, the Council prolonged economic sanctions targeting specific sectors of the Russian economy until 31 January 2019.

This decision follows an update from President Macron and Chancellor Merkel to the European Council of 28-29 June 2018 on the state of implementation of the Minsk agreements, to which the sanctions are linked.

The Council adopted this decision today by written procedure and, in line with the rule for all such decisions, unanimously.

The measures target the financial, energy and defence sectors, and the area of dual-use goods. They were originally introduced on 31 July 2014 for one year in response to Russia’s actions destabilising the situation in Ukraine and strengthened in September 2014.

The economic sanctions prolonged by this decision include:

  • limiting access to EU primary and secondary capital markets for 5 major Russian majority state-owned financial institutions and their majority-owned subsidiaries established outside of the EU, as well as three major Russian energy and three defence companies;
  • imposing an export and import ban on trade in arms;
  • establishing an export ban for dual-use goods for military use or military end users in Russia;
  • curtailing Russian access to certain sensitive technologies and services  that can be used for oil production and exploration.

In addition to these economic sanctions, several EU measures are also in place in response to the crisis in Ukraine including:  

  • targeted individual restrictive measures, namely a visa ban and an asset freeze, currently against 155 people and 38 entities until 15 September 2018;
  • restrictive measures in response to the illegal annexation of Crimea and Sevastopol, limited to the territory of Crimea and Sevastopol, currently in place until 23 June 2019.

The duration of the sanctions was linked to the complete implementation of the Minsk agreements by the European Council on 19 March 2015, which was foreseen to take place by 31 December 2015. Since this did not happen, the sanctions have remained in place.



Action against stolen Italian artefacts

The Hague, 05 July 2018

In the early hours of yesterday morning, arrests and searches took place in Italy, Germany, Spain and the UK against an international organised crime group (OCG) accused of trafficking in archaeological artefacts taken from illegal excavations in central Sicily.

The artefacts were illegally exported to Germany by couriers and smugglers working for the OCG. Once in Germany, the items were provided with false certificates of origin and placed on the legitimate art market, using auction houses operating in Munich as distribution channels.

The investigation was headed, since 2014, by the Public Prosecution Office of Caltanissetta, Italy. Arrest warrants were issued by an Italian judge against 28 suspects: 25 in Italy and one each in Germany, Spain and the UK. Italian officers, members of the Carabinieri Cultural Heritage Unit, were present during the action, and searches were carried out in all four Member States. At present, more than 25 000 artefacts have been seized, with a value estimated at EUR 40 million.

Europol’s analysts were involved in cross-matching evidence, both in advance and on the action day. Eurojust’s assistance was crucial in coordinating the execution of the arrests and searches in the four Member States on the action day.



EBA and ESMA publish guidelines on suitability assessment for management body members and key function holders

05 July 2018

Guidelines and Technical standards

Joint Committee

MiFID – Investor Protection

Press Releases

The European Banking Authority (EBA) and the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) have published their joint Guidelines to assess the suitability of members of management bodies and key function holders.