EIB grants a loan for 1,530 charging stations for electric cars in Bulgaria

The European Investment Bank has approved a €40 million loan to Austria-registered Eldrive Holding GmbH, which will install 8,472 charging stations for electric cars in Bulgaria, Lithuania and Romania over the next three years, the bank said.

The company is expected to invest nearly 146 million euros for the installation of 4,376 new charging stations for electric vehicles in Romania, 2,575 in Lithuania and 1,530 in Bulgaria. This will accelerate the construction of the necessary infrastructure to implement clean transport in the three countries and support the transition to climate neutrality.

The agreement is supported by the InvestEU programme, which aims to attract more than €372 billion of additional investment over the period 2021-2027 in areas such as the green transition, competitiveness, innovation and sustainable infrastructure.

The project will seek to address the low penetration of electric cars and charging stations in the three countries and help them achieve the EU Green Deal targets of one million public EV charging stations and alternative fuel stations in all 27 Member States by 2027. Electric car charging networks will be crucial for the transition to electric vehicles and help reduce greenhouse gas emissions and urban air pollution in Bulgaria, Lithuania and Romania.

Eldrive Holding, under the control of Bulgarian investors, already operates over 1,200 charging stations for electric vehicles in the three countries.

Electric car charging is among the sectors eligible for additional support under the EIB's special initiative in aid of REPowerEU - the EU's plan to break Europe's dependence on fossil fuels. The EU Bank has set aside EUR 45 billion in additional financing, which it is adding to the usual lending volumes for projects related to REPowerEU.