COMMENT: Amid shrinking civic space, will the EBRD still uphold its democratic mandate?

6 June 2025  | bne Intellinews

As the EBRD expands its operations into new regions, including sub-Saharan Africa and Iraq, will it stay true to its founding mission, and place democracy and civic participation at the heart of its approach?

Zero Waste Europe: Despite EU waste management budget, CEE states struggle to catch up

17 March 2025  | Packaging Insights

Report co-authors Fidanka Bacheva-McGrath, strategic area leader at CEE Bankwatch Network, and Evgenia Tasheva from the Za Zemiata Zero Waste team, tell us that: “EU funding has disbursed significant amounts to much-needed investments in CEE since 2021, at least EUR 584 million went to waste incineration, and only EUR 228 million to biomass plants, mainly in the fund’s largest beneficiaries, such as Czechia, Poland, and Romania.”

Czechia wants to phase out coal. But is natural gas the solution?

10 March 2025  | Euronews

According to calculations by CEE Bankwatch, the Czech plants near Vrato and Opatovice alone are getting a total of almost 350 million euros in subsidies from the EU Modernisation Fund.

Greening the EU budget: why climate mainstreaming needs reform

26 February 2025  | Bruegel

CEE Bankwatch Network (2024) analysed the practical implementation of the DNSH principle in the RRF using six case studies. In some cases, the simplified procedure relied solely on uncritically accepting the countries’ declarations.

Why China is Building a New Road to Russia

26 February 2025  | The B1M

“The Khada Valley is a very small valley. It’s located very close to the capital [Tbilisi] and it’s unique in terms of its cultural heritage,” said Manana Kochladze, the human rights and democratisation lead at Bankwatch. 

EIB fears ‘reputational disaster’ over revised EU green reporting

7 January 2025  | Financial Times

Anna Roggenbuck, policy officer at the campaign group CEE Bankwatch, said the EIB “is not transparent in how it calculates a project’s carbon emissions including all the scope of emissions, and because this is not public, there is no outside scrutiny”.