[Campaign Update] New blow to Bosnia-Herzegovina coal plans as Energy Community requires changes to permit
February 15, 2017
A new coal-fired power plant in Bosnia-Herzegovina will have adhere to stricter air quality standards, according to a new ruling by the Energy Community Secretariat. The decision comes in response to a complaint filed by the environmental NGO Ekotim regarding the environmental permit enabling the construction of the 350 MW Banovići power plant in north-eastern Bosnia-Herzegovina. The complaint, filed in July 2016, claimed that the Federal Ministry of Environment and Tourism had failed to require pollution limits as obliged under the Energy Community Treaty.
Across Visegrad countries we’re talking about development
January 28, 2016
Summing up an exciting year of awareness raising about development finance, a new video shows moments from four events in the Visegrad countries Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia.
Video: Bankwatch’s media coordinator explaining our EYD2015 project
January 14, 2016
As the European Year for Development draws to a close, Bankwatch’s media coordinator David Hoffman was asked to summarise the issues about which our project strived to increase EU citizens’ awareness. Watch the interview on Youtube >>
In Hungary, students find the answer to the 7.5 billion question
December 11, 2015
In September 2015, 164 classes totalling 4 000 high school students participated in a half-year contest by Bankwatch member group MTVSZ culminating in December’s final event, where the top ten teams from around the country helped close the 2015 European Year of Development.
‘No peaceful atom’ film premier at One World festival in Slovakia
November 30, 2015
A Bankwatch film about Ukraine’s nuclear sector and the controversial European public funding for it was premiered at the One World film festival in Slovakia.
Film premier: Winstar Wars explores south Tunisia’s gas exploration region
November 20, 2015
Almost 40 years ago Star Wars was filmed in the south of Tunisia. For many this will be the only association with the country. The city of Tataouine – after which the planet Tatooine was named in George Lucas’ film – is not a touristic mecca, though. The capital of the largest region of Tunisia with 100 000 inhabitants has only 3 hotels which stand largely empty.
No resistance without community – an open assembly, 29 November 2015
November 20, 2015
Mega infrastructure projects are imposed in the North an in the South of the world in the name of progress and “development”. But what does development mean today? Experiences of resistance to mega-projects have in some cases allowed to create new processes oriented at “building community”. What are such processes and how do they look like? At an open assembly taking place in Avigliana, Italy on 29 November 2015 people who have made such experience will meet and collectively think about the meaning of building community.
Volt II, a ‘sight-seeing tour’ to challenge large energy infrastructure
November 19, 2015
Inspired by the toxic tours in Mexico, Ecuador and the United States, the Catalan organisation ODG organised the tour VOLT II, challenging large energy infrastructure that followed the fantastic experience of the Volt Oligotòxic in Catalonia in 2014. by Alfons Pérez, Observatorio de la Deuda en la Globalización (ODG)
Round table discussion debates Latvia’s approach to inequality
November 18, 2015
Now that the Sustainable Development Goals have been adopted by the United Nations, their implementation has to be discussed in depth and at a country level. Bankwatch member group Latvian Green Movement therefore organised a high level discussion about goal no. 10, inequality on 20 October 2015. The main task of the event was to find a starting point by identifying existing Latvian policies in the field of inequality reduction within and among countries.
Export finance in Slovakia – for coal, against sustainable development
November 17, 2015
Slovakia’s official stance in the upcoming climate negotiations in Paris Climate Summit is no progressive one. An argument often heard is that a small country like Slovakia plays only a little role. The handful of coal plants in Slovakia cannot “compete” with the CO2 emissions of economic giants like the United States or China. And we do not significantly contribute to migration caused by climate impacts. But that is not true.
