Former European Investment Bank head Werner Hoyer in EU corruption probe

By Marc Jones and Benoit Van Overstraeten

LONDON/BRUSSELS (Reuters) -The former president of the European Investment Bank, Werner Hoyer, is under investigation for corruption and abuse of influence, as well as the misappropriation of EU funds, allegations the 72-year-old said were "absurd".

The European Public Prosecutor’s Office, which polices EU funding misuse cases, announced the investigation on Monday, saying the EU's lending arm had accepted its request to lift immunity on two of its former employees and to have its offices searched.

Hoyer, who led the bank between 2012 and 2023, was not named by the prosecutor's office but made a statement through his lawyers that he was one of the subjects of the inquiry.

"The allegations against me are downright absurd and unfounded," Hoyer said, adding that he was fully co-operating with the investigation and had asked the EIB to do the same.

He said it was an investigation into compensation money paid to another EIB employee that he had signed off while president following "a recommendation from the department in charge and the Secretary General of the EIB".

A spokesperson for the EIB said: "We will cooperate fully with the European Public Prosecutor’s Office on this matter as required," but that it could not comment on ongoing external investigations.

The EIB has a balance sheet of well over 500 billion euros ($536.35 billion) and lends around 80 billion euros a year making it the biggest multilateral development lender in the world.

In his more than decade at the Luxembourg-based bank, Hoyer, a former German junior minister of foreign affairs, drove a major shift towards renewable energy and other socially beneficial lending.

The prosecutor's office said the suspicions that triggered the investigation were originally reported to it by the European Anti-Fraud Office.

It added that no further details would be made public for the time being in order not to endanger the probe's outcome.

($1 = 0.9322 euros)

(Reporting by Marc Jones in London and Benoit Van Overstraeten in Brussels; Editing by Angus MacSwan, Barbara Lewis and Christina Fincher)