Background
The NextGenerationEU recovery instrument, adopted in 2020, aims to create a healthier, greener, and more digital EU, where citizens can be part of the change. The instrument provides Member States with a total of EUR 806.9 billion, in addition to the money they already receive from the EU budget, to help recover from the COVID-19 pandemic and to deliver a sustainable, inclusive transformation across the EU by ‘building back better’.
However, in the past two years, non-governmental organisations monitoring the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF), the largest part of this recovery instrument, have revealed an alarming lack of transparency, public participation and stakeholder engagement across Member States.
The RRF can help Member States achieve the climate, energy and biodiversity objectives envisioned under the European Green Deal. But to do so, the EU must be connected with its citizens, and this is where civil society can play a crucial role. After all, public money should be used for the public good. A just energy transformation is an opportunity, but it comes with the challenge of determining where precious public funds can make the biggest difference, within Europe and globally.
The Citizens’ Observatory for Green Deal Financing will advocate at the EU and national levels for more transparency and a just distribution of EU funds. The observatory aims to promote the voices of local communities in seven Member States through a series of workshops, public events, virtual tours, roundtables, reports and other activities.
Virtual tours
The unsustainable breakwater in Genoa
Public funding: estimated EUR 1.5-2 billion
Concerns: poor consultation with citizens
Risks:
- Biodiversity – Mediterranean Sea ecosystem, Pelagos Sanctuary Reserve
- Climate – CO2 emission from increased traffic in the city of Genoa and the Mediterranean Sea
- Economic – high economic risk and cost of lost opportunity to invest in alternatives
- Other – negative impact on fishing, sea pollution, resources use
The breakwater is the foundation of the city’s port restructuring, designed to accommodate next-generation mega containers and cruise ships. The work has been divided into smaller infrastructure interventions; yet individual assessment of each project does not provide a clear understanding of the overall impact of the breakwater on the city, which includes traffic and pollution, nor the impact on the land, marine environment and climate.
The project’s environmental studies appear incomplete and fail to consider the project’s interaction with the Mediterranean’s currents. Instead, the studies analyse only the immediate area surrounding Genoa. Yet the construction would jeopardise the equilibrium of the Pelagos Sanctuary, a key area for the protection of dolphins, whales and seals.
The breakwater is a huge waste of public money – EUR 2 billion, with some of the funds coming from Italy’s recovery and resilience plan – but it is also a technical risk. Not only have local committees and activists voiced their concerns, but experts have also done so: engineer Piero Silva, former technical director of the project for RINA Consulting, resigned in 2022, declaring that the project is unsustainable from every perspective – from the geotechnical to the economic.
To learn more, watch ReCommon’s video.
Uncovering the green transition
The twin transition, green and digital, is being put forward within the European institutions as a central solution to combat the climate emergency. This technology-based transition – renewables, electric vehicles, green hydrogen, digitalisation – requires critical and strategic materials that are spread around the world. These materials are found in territories such as the high Andean salt flats between Bolivia, Argentina and Chile for lithium, the Katanga region in the Democratic Republic of Congo for cobalt, the Palawan archipelago province in the Philippines for nickel or Bayan Obo in China’s Inner Mongolia for rare earths, among many others.
Public funding: In Spain, for example, the Strategic Projects for Economic Recovery and Transformation (PERTE) that have received the most money to channel funds from the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan through the Recovery and Resilience Facility are microelectronics and semiconductors, renewable energies, renewable hydrogen and storage, and PERTE for the development of electric and connected vehicles. All of them are highly demanding of critical raw materials.
Concerns: Some territories and specially, sacrifice zones are being impacted by extractivist dynamics.
Risks: The growing demand for critical transition minerals is causing disruption to ecosystems, territories and populations affected by extractivism that now carries the adjective ‘green’. Transition cannot focus only on technological solutions for the Global North. Just eco-social and eco-feminist transitions are needed for the entire globe.
Uncovering the green transition: 4. Hydrogen, the big player
In the desire to decarbonise the economy and production, there is one element that resonates above all else: green hydrogen. In order to develop it, the aim is to reproduce the same transport and consumption model as with fossil gas and, for this reason, the European Union, the Spanish state and countries of the Global South have developed their roadmaps to make hydrogen a reality. The European Union, for example, presented H2Med, a green hydrogen corridor to enable hydrogen transport from Spain to Portugal (H2Med-CelZa) and France (H2Med-BarMar).
Furthermore, with the idea of continuing to meet the current demand for fossil gas with hydrogen, the European Commission is looking beyond the European continent. Chile is one of the countries that has defined itself as a strategic partner to carry out the energy transition in the European Union and has a national roadmap for the development of green hydrogen. This will be used for decarbonisation of the mining sector and for export, and international investment funds and European fossil and energy companies will play a relevant role.
Public funding: Both because of the European green transition and the need to break energy dependence on Russian gas, the European Union has created public funds and mechanisms that can finance projects for hydrogen production and transport. This has meant that in recent years, energy and fossil fuel companies such as Repsol, Iberdrola, Enagás, among others, have been lobbying for the development of hydrogen, promoting old gas infrastructures to transport hydrogen.
A 4 million project to promote green hydrogen in Chile is also planned through the Global Gateway.
Concerns: In Chile, green hydrogen projects pose a threat to the way of life of the indigenous communities, in this case the Chango people who live in the coastal villages, as they are mainly engaged in fishing and seaweed gathering. Already with the installation of thermoelectric plants two decades ago, they have seen how the desalination process alters marine ecosystems and increases marine and air pollution, putting their health at risk as well.
The production of green hydrogen requires the consumption of significant amounts of water and energy.
Risks: It is not proven that hydrogen – whether green or not – can be transported over these long distances.
The promotion of large infrastructures implies the continuation of a centralised energy model with large production centres and the transport of energy to large consumption centres. The continuity of this big-big-big model (big companies making big investments) hinders the progress towards energy sovereignty and a decentralised energy model, which is more democratic and sustainable.
Events
Protection of Environmental interests: Green light to be heard!
Event | 23 May, 2023Two seminars for young people and one seminar for educators and local activists were organised, where participants could learn about the existing opportunities of civil engagement and public participation in the decisions made by municipalities, the government of Latvia. They also heard the summary of experiences of environmental organisations on how to influence expenditure of public finances and EU funds in a climate, environment and biodiversity-friendly direction.
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Want to advocate for the environment? It’s not as hard as it sounds!
Event | 3 March, 2023In the beginning of 2023 Bankwatch member group Green Liberty announced the year 2023 as the Year for Environmental Advocacy in Latvia. Active people, emerging environmentalists and members of various organisations met in a full-day opening event on 3
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Hydrogen: the major player in the energy transition
Event | 22 May, 2023In the desire to decarbonise the economy and production, there is one element that resonates above all else: green hydrogen. In order to develop it, the aim is to reproduce the same transport and consumption model as with fossil gas and, for this reason, the European Union, the Spanish state and countries of the Global South have developed their roadmaps to make hydrogen a reality.
Read more
The digital and green transitions’ impacts on the Global South
Event | 15 May, 2023The twin transition, green and digital, is being put forward within the European institutions as a central solution to combat the climate emergency. This technology-based transition – renewables, electric vehicles, green hydrogen, digitalisation – requires critical and strategic materials that are spread around the world.
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Recovery and gas at full throttle
Event | 15 March, 2023The webinar ‘Recovery and gas at full throttle’ was organised to reflect and debate on the REPowerEU plan that encourages Member States to add several new LNG terminals and pipelines, opening up the possibility of using various chapters of the European budget to finance them and allowing for a derogation from the ‘do no significant harm’ principle.
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Recovery Fund: what investments to fight energy poverty?
Event | 27 February, 2023Public investments proposed by governments should address energy poverty by ensuring affordable energy prices, energy efficiency improvements, energy savings and social inclusion. Are there good practices that manage to combine these dimensions? What investments do we need to respond to this urgency?
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What infrastructure for a just transition?
Event | 7 February, 2023During this meeting, we will look at two major Italian infrastructure: the new breakwater in Genoa, funded by the Italian RRP, and the widening of the Bologna highway bypass, a public infrastructure presented as a symbol of ecological transition.
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Citizens’ Observatory on Green Deal Financing Kick-off event
Event | 26 January, 2023The Citizens’ Observatory on Green Deal Financing kick-off event took place on 23-26 January 2023 in Belgium, Brussels. The event was organised to bring together project partners and other organisations interested in working together on monitoring EU funds and advocating for more transparency and public participation in Member States. 35 participants from 16 countries attended the event.
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