During last month’s EBRD annual meeting in Warsaw, Bankwatch Mail convened a discussion about the state of the Polish economy between a financial journalist and a sociologist – both residents of the Polish capital – to hear their views on some of the pressing economic issues of the day, as well as the ongoing Polish ‘transition’ process. With the 25th anniversary of the end of communist rule in Poland a few months away now (today in fact marks a quarter of a century since the first Polish elections under communism), what have been the achievements and the lessons to be learned from the last two and half decades?
People living next to the Kolubara lignite mine in Serbia have suffered more under the floods due to the vicinity of the mine. Their demands for resettlement and compensation have now become more urgent than ever.
New cases of arbitrary repression against civil society happened in the run-up to the presidential elections in Egypt. A look at the loans so far approved by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development suggests that those in power have been more successful in receiving the bank’s support.
Colleagues from the Egyptian Centre of Economic and Social Rights criticise the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development’s too lax approach when examining its activities in Egypt’s cement sector.
A delegation of 20 lynx from Mavrovo National Park in Macedonia today occupied a corridor in the Polish National Stadium in Warsaw, where the EBRD Annual General Meetings are taking place 14-15 May. Their message: “EBRD, don’t finance the Boskov Most dam, as it will destroy the forest in which we live and eventually kill us.” The 20 delegates from Mavrovo Park constitute almost half of the little over 50 lynxes which still survive in the park today (the Balkan lynx is an endangered species).
The Turkish Garanti Bank, one of the winners of the Sustainability Awards of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development is among the main coal investors in Turkey.
