A clash is raging between nature and finance. On the one hand, the EU is striving to improve the deteriorating state of nature across Europe, with initiatives like the Biodiversity Strategy 2030 and the European Green Deal. On the other, massive amounts of public money continue to flow to infrastructure projects with devastating impacts on the natural world. Our work where finance meets the natural world advocates for adequate protection and restoration projects to ensure a green future for all.
IN FOCUS
Rivers and communities
The countries of the Energy Community Treaty have diverse energy mixes, but hydropower has traditionally played a strong role in many of them. Albania is almost completely reliant on dams for its domestic electricity generation, followed by Georgia with an average of 80 per cent of electricity generated by hydropower and Montenegro with an average of 55 per cent.
EU funds and biodiversity
In May 2020, EU leaders committed to an ambitious Biodiversity Strategy for 2030, outlining the clear need to act on biodiversity loss and address the failing health of nature.
Discussions are now underway to agree on a new EU budget which will run from 2027 to 2034. This represents a golden opportunity to improve biodiversity spending to achieve the objectives of the biodiversity strategy in full.
As well as addressing the biodiversity crisis, strategically supporting nature through EU funds is also one of the most effective ways to tackle climate change, while providing jobs and improved health at the same time.
Yet, with many of the previous strategy’s objectives left unachieved, the pressure now mounts for this decade. Never before has there been so much potential – and urgency – to use EU funds and investments to address the biodiversity crisis.
Related projects
Free-flowing rivers in Central Asia
Central Asian rivers are under threat from hundreds of new hydropower plants. We have created a map of the key rivers in the region that need urgent protection and are calling on the development banks to stop their destruction.
Emerald Network in the Western Balkans
Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia are required to establish a sufficient number of Emerald Network sites as signatories to the Bern Convention. However, since 2011, not a single new site has been proposed and many stunning rivers remain unprotected. The #EmeraldForRivers campaign aims to support governments in expanding the Emerald Network.
Turnu Măgurele – Nikopol Hydraulic Structures Assembly on the Danube river, Romania and Bulgaria
The project, if built, would not only devastate critical habitats, leading to the potential extinction of species such as the Danube sturgeons, but also displace local communities, disrupt existing investments, and violate several EU environmental directives.
Latest news
Albania’s Skavica dam can’t get off the ground – time to finally cancel it!
Blog entry | 24 November, 2025The highly damaging hydropower project could hardly have had stronger political support at its inception, with the country’s parliament passing a special law in 2021 to appoint U.S. construction giant Bechtel as the main contractor. But four years later, the project has stagnated, with no environmental permit and no financing.
Read moreRomania’s Parliament paves the way for environmental destruction and ‘foreign agent’ repression
Blog entry | 20 October, 2025Romania stands at a dangerous crossroads. Last week, a law initiated by the senator Daniel Zamfir in 2022 and already then rejected by the Senate, passed by a crushing majority (262–33) in the decisive Deputies Chamber.
Read moreExpanding the Emerald Network: Progress and gaps in the Western Balkans
Blog entry | 9 October, 2025At the 15th meeting of the Bern Convention’s Group of Experts on Protected Areas and Ecological Networks – held from 7 to 8 October 2025 in Bar, Montenegro – participants reviewed progress towards establishing the Emerald Network of protected areas. As part of the programme, the group visited Lake Skadar, one of Montenegro’s key Emerald sites, acknowledging the government’s efforts to safeguard this unique ecosystem.
Read moreRelated publications
Environmental standards in hydro power projects in Georgia
Briefing | 9 May, 2012 | Download PDFIn recent years Georgia’s government has sought to position the country as a future regional renewable energy hub. Governmental plans include the construction of transmission lines and numerous hydropower plants (HPPs), in order to ensure electricity exports to Turkey and subsequently to gain access to the south-east European market by 2015-2017. The number and technical design of the planned HPPs do not comply with the principles of sustainable development, and they are bound to have serious negative impacts on the environment.
Destroying future NATURA 2000 sites in the Balkans. The European Commission’s role in steering the EBRD’s investments
Advocacy letter | 1 March, 2012 | Download PDFThe letter complains about the EU’s negligence of its shareholder role in the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and its lack of scrutiny of two recently approved projects that are set to contravene EU principles and standards: the Ombla hyrdopower plant in Croatia and the Boskov Most HPP in Macedonia.
Confirmatory application regarding disclosure of results of the interservice consultation for Ombla hydropower plant
Official document | 29 February, 2012 | Download PDFThe EBRD’s Board of Directors approved the Ombla hyrdopower plant project on 22 November 2011, before an assessment had been carried out regarding the project’s impact on a proposed Natura 2000 site. In addition the project is being carried out on the basis of an Environmental Impact Assessment study from 1999, whose content may not fully reflect the requirements of EU legislation in this area.
