Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland trail as EU recovery fund closes, Bankwatch says
12 October 2026 | IntelliNews
Hungary, Bulgaria and Poland are trailing the rest of the EU in drawing on the bloc’s post-pandemic recovery fund as it enters its final phase, with Romania, Slovakia and Czechia close behind, environmental watchdog CEE Bankwatch Network said.
Romania prepares to launch 1.1 GW gas-fired turbines next month
29 September 2026 | Montel News
Romania’s Mintia gas-fired power plant is set to launch with an initial capacity of about 1.1 GW next month, increasing to 1.7 GW early next year, the country’s energy ministry told Montel on Monday. CEE Bankwatch Network last week criticised Romania’s focus on new gas capacity, arguing that battery storage was developing faster and could provide flexibility to the power system.
Romania’s gas strategy falters as battery capacity surges – NGO
29 September 2026 | Montel Markets
Romania’s battery storage capacity has expanded rapidly and is already providing grid flexibility, while the ongoing energy crisis has exposed the country’s failings in focusing on delayed gas projects, NGO CEE Bankwatch Network said on Friday.
Billions for reconstruction: How not to finance projects that harm the environment
24 September 2026 | ZN.UA / Mirror of the Week
Ukraine is being rebuilt, without waiting for the end of the war. In the coming years, billions of euros of public investment — funds from the state and local budgets — will be directed to energy, transport, housing, hospitals, and other public investment projects and programs.
Letter: Ukraine chicken baron’s environmental footprint
7 September 2026 | Financial Times
The Ukrainian success story of poultry giant MHP is anything but for the communities that live in the shadows of its factories (“War fails to clip wings of Ukraine’s chicken baron”, FT Series Big Chicken, September 4). MHP operates the largest agricultural enterprise in the Vinnytsia region, managing extensive cropland for chicken feed production. Its environmental footprint is massive. For the last five years, locals have monitored water quality near the MHP site, detecting alarming levels of nitrate contamination, especially in groundwater that people rely on for drinking.
Up to a third of EU decarbonisation fund spent on natural gas, report finds
4 August 2026 | Euractiv
A big chunk of the EU’s flagship industrial decarbonisation fund was spent on fossil fuels and other climate-unfriendly programmes, according to a report published on Wednesday. In the late 2010s, Brussels created the Modernisation Fund to soften the blow of the carbon price paid by European factory and power plant operators under the ‘Emissions Trading System’ (ETS), which is currently over €80 a tonne of CO2.
