Close to one hundred people from Sofia and the industrial northern town of Devnya took to the streets of the capital in protest against incineration and the air pollution affecting both towns, where the government pushes ahead with false solutions to the EU’s circular economy agenda.
A lack of ambition, vision and delivery sums up the Polish national recovery and resilience plan that was released on 26 February. The fundamental flaw is that the plan provides no path for the country to reach neither the EU’s climate neutrality target by 2050 nor the much less ambitious targets outlined in the recent Poland’s Energy Policy 2040 (PEP2040), like reducing the share of coal in the electricity mix to 56 per cent.
The European Commission walks a tightrope with the EU Green Deal. Despite the long-term objectives of achieving a circular economy and reducing resource use, it plans to increase raw materials mining to meet the demand for the clean energy, renewables, and other high-tech solutions that are at the forefront of the EU’s green development plans. A planned lithium mine in Serbia, vehemently opposed by local communities, is a poignant example of this tension.
The European Investment Bank, one of the largest lenders globally, is currently working on a new transparency policy that will govern how and what information the bank makes public. As the EU’s house bank, the EIB must guarantee the right of all citizens to access information held by public bodies.
National Recovery and Resilience Plans have to be submitted to the European Commission by 30 April, 2021. Yet less than two months before the deadline, the latest updates from the Romanian and Latvian recovery plans raise alarm on public participation and on unambitious climate and energy targets.
As the unfolding political crisis engulfs the streets of Yerevan, recent developments at the Bern Convention and EBRD portent a rocky future for the Amulsar project.
