§ Mr. Spearingasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if any use has yet been made of the powers conferred on the European Investment Bank of its additional powers to alter the method of converting units of account into national currencies under Article 7(4) of its protocol, as amended by a treaty, Cmnd. 6253, approved by the House on 8th-9th December 1975.
§ Mr. Robert SheldonThe treaty (Cmnd. 6253) amending certain provisions of the protocol on the statute of the European Investment Bank, which entered into force on 1st October 1977, empowers the Board of Governors, acting unanimously on a proposal by the Board of Directors, to amend the definition of the bank's unit of account and the method of converting sums expressed in units of account into national currencies and vice versa.
On 30th December 1977 the Board of Governors, acting on a proposal by the Board of Directors, decided that the value of the unit of account shall be equal to the sum of the following amounts of the national currencies of the member States:
The Board of Governors also decided that the parity of the currency of a member State in relation to the unit of account defined above shall be taken as the rate for converting the unit of account into this currency and vice versa based on market prices.
Deutsche Mark 0.828 Pound sterling 0.0885 French franc 1.15 Italian lira 109 Dutch guilder 0.286 Belgian franc 3.66 Luxembourg franc 0.14 Danish krone 0.217 Irish pound 0.00759