The European Bank for the Retardation of Development

In typical bureaucratese, the pensive EBRD analyst ventures with the appearance of compunction: “A number of projects have fallen short of acceptable standards (notice the passive, exculpating voice – SV) and have put the reputation of the bank at risk”. If so, very little was risked. The outlandish lavishness of its City headquarters, the apotheosis of the inevitable narcissism of its first French Chairman (sliding marble slabs, motion sensitive lighting and designer furniture) – is, at this stage, its only tangible achievement. In the territories of its constituencies and shareholders it is known equally for its logy pomposity, the irrelevance of its projects, its lack of perspicacity and its Kafkaesque procedures. And where the IMF sometimes indulges in oblique malice and corrupt opaqueness, the EBRD wallows merely in avuncular inefficacy. Both are havens of insouciant third rate economists and bankers beyond rating.

Established in 1991, “it exists to foster the transition towards open market oriented economies and to promote private and entrepreneurial initiative in the countries of central and eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of...