The Bankwatch EIB team read the most recent report by the European Investment Bank on the bank’s crisis lending to small and medium enterprises and they were surprised by its main claims: unlike what the EIB says, our own research shows that EIB crisis loans to SMEs were more helpful to commercial banks disbursing them than to the cash-strapped small and medium enterprises they were supposed to help.
No more (EU) sweeping under the rug!
August 15, 2011 | Read more
Bankwatch’s waste expert, analyses the draft EU Resource Efficiency Roadmap released by the Commission this month. A good start, but much more is needed, says Galovic.
Manana Kochladze, Bankwatch’s regional coordinator for the Caucasus and co-author of our new civil society guide Gender and international financial institutions talks about the impacts on women’s lives when big money comes to help “develop” their countries.
Bypassing responsibility
August 8, 2011 | Read more
The complaints office at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development has agreed to investigate a complaint from Bankwatch that a railway project in Georgia has not been properly assessed. Georgian Bankwatcher Dato Chipashvili thinks the case should be a lesson for the EBRD to make sure that from the start local people have their say in how projects are done.
As discussions intensify about the future European Union budget, Bankwatch’s Czech energy campaigner outlines how spending EU money on energy efficiency promises better economic, social and environmental returns than the prevailing consensus about big infrastructure projects.
Macedonian Bankwatcher Ana Colovic-Lesoska is disappointed by how few opportunities for real public participation were provided during the European Union’s (EU) consultation on the Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance (IPA), the main EU financial tool to help countries in their efforts to join the Community.
