The European Investment Bank (EIB) constitutes one of the main institutional pillars upon which the European Union (EU) was built. Strikingly, the institution has attracted little research. EIB Statutes can be condensed down to five overarching objectives that its lending should prioritize: originally, development, integration and investment, and, since the mid-1990s, environmental protection and tackling unemployment. This chapter provides a comprehensive qualitative analysis of EIB lending to Europe from its origins to the present and examines the Bank’s loans in light of its lending objectives. We find a watershed moment occurring at the end of the Cold War. Until the 1990s, the EIB promoted integration and development above the alleviation of capital constraints. Since then, however, there was a progressive ‘mechanization’ of EIB loans at the expense of securing the institution’s mission, to the extent that loans were increasingly associated with capital subscribed by its members. This could mean that the EIB mission as found in its Statutes and its lending practice is becoming increasingly misaligned.