Piraeus Bank Partners with EIB for €100 Million Defence Funding

Funding Agreement for Greek Defence

ATHENS, Jan 16 (Reuters) - The European Investment Bank, the EU's lending arm, and Greece's Piraeus Bank signed an agreement on Friday to provide up to 100 million euros ($116 million) of funding to small- and medium-sized defence companies.

Details of the Funding

The EIB plans to provide at least 3 billion euros to help fund the European Union's defence industry and might revise the number even higher if there is more demand.

Implications for Greek Defence Industry

Piraeus is the first Greek bank to sign such an agreement with the EIB.

Future Prospects and Other Agreements

The Greek bank's CEO Christos Megalou told a press conference in Athens that by leveraging the funds "the bank will be able to provide 200 million euros to a few hundred small and medium size Greek companies that are active in the cybersecurity and defence sectors".

Germany's Deutsche Bank signed a similar agreement in June.

Greece plans to spend more than 28 billion euros on arms procurements by 2035 to modernise its armed forces. It has said that 25% of this will go to domestic defence companies.

Eirini Botonaki, the EIB's senior loan officer, said the investment bank was also "in discussions with other Greek banks" over similar agreements.

($1 = 0.8610 euros)

(Reporting by Lefteris Papadimas. Editing by Mark Potter)