CEE Bankwatch Network and Friends of the Earth Europe (FoEE) revealed today, on the twentieth anniversary of the EU's Cohesion policy, that clean and efficient energy and transport investment projects continue to be denied sufficient priority attention in the EU-sponsored spending plans of the new member states (EU-10). Since the groups' previous analysis in 2007 of the EU-10's draft spending plans for the total EUR 177 billion of Structural and Cohesion funds to be disbursed to the new member states in the 2007-2013 period, the final European commission approved plans show an unambitious, marginal rise in funding for energy efficiency and renewables from 2.1 percent (2007) to 2.4 percent (2008) of total available funds. In the same time period, allocations for new roads and motorways in the EU-10 have jumped by EUR 5 billion.

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development is considering multi-million euro financial support for a pumped storage plant in Ukraine. You may not be familiar with such creatures, but pumped storage plants are dangerous, inefficient energy facilities that are needed to support the “nuclear boom” planned in the Ukraine. Help us to stop this EBRD loan – write to the EBRD's president today!