EBRD tightens standards in response to Balkan hydropower boom
Blog entry | 16 May, 2019As a result of public resistance to small-scale hydropower projects in the Balkans, from the beginning of 2020, the EBRD will ask commercial banks to refer all high-risk projects – including all hydropower plants – for additional checks. The EBRD also requires them to meet higher environmental standards than previously. The bank will ask that such projects are disclosed to the public on the financial intermediary’s website, finally increasing disclosure on these hitherto hidden projects.
Read moreEuropean Development Bank Significantly Strengthens its Grievance Mechanism – Reformed Mechanism Now More Independent
Press release | 9 May, 2019(Amsterdam, Prague, Washington, D.C.) — Civil society organizations welcomed the new grievance mechanism policy for the London-based European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).
Read moreFive reasons why EBRD should pull out of the controversial Nenskra hydropower project
Blog entry | 8 May, 2019As the realisation of the project keeps dragging on, it is becoming increasingly difficult for the EBRD, and all international financial institutions involved, to justify their engagement.
Read moreCorporate loans – the rotten apple in EBRD’s Environmental and Social Policy?
Blog entry | 18 April, 2019As the Board of Directors is expected to vote any day now on the renewed Policy which lays out the conditions for reaching the Bank’s sustainability mandate and commitment to EU standards, a compliance review on Serbia’s energy company’s corporate restructuring loan calls for clearer and stronger safeguards for corporate level loans.
Read moreNew report highlights misuse of banking secrecy rules
Blog entry | 26 March, 2019BankTrack’s study finds that client confidentiality is not an absolute legal requirement in any of the world’s major banking centres. Banks can – and do – include the right to disclose information into their contracts. Will the EIB & EBRD acknowledge this in their policies on intermediated lending?
Read moreMilestone bank summit in Belgrade a step towards protecting Balkan rivers, but greater transparency still needed
Press release | 1 March, 2019For immediate release. Belgrade – The ‘Save the Blue Heart of Europe’ campaign [1] gave a cautious welcome to a first-of-its-kind summit between the financial sector and green activists, where a roundtable about the role of banks in the destruction of Balkan rivers by hydropower dams was centre stage.
Read moreMacedonian hydropower complaint highlights EBRD’s enduring opacity
Blog entry | 11 February, 2019After almost a year of struggling to get basic environmental information from the EBRD about the Krapska hydropower project, Bankwatch has submitted an official complaint [1] to the bank’s Secretary General. As we run the same administrative circles over and over again, another precious river valley has been irreversibly damaged.
Read moreChanging lives and doing no harm
Blog entry | 8 February, 2019“We invest in changing lives” is the slogan of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, whose investments in 2018 reached EUR 9.5 billion through 395 projects. Whether the change is for better depends on the bank’s environmental and human rights safeguards.
Read moreThe weight of gold
Blog entry | 16 January, 2019The new gold mine in Krumovgrad boasts environmental performance and social responsibility, yet there are black spots along the path of the Bulgarian gold around the globe.
Read moreNew reports add details to investigation of Armenia gold mine
Blog entry | 8 January, 2019If you’re looking for a revolution, sign up for notifications from your embassy. The messages pinging on smartphone screens that night in October began not long after stepping into the evening streets around the Yerevan Cascade, warning of impending demonstrations outside the Armenian parliament. To be sure, the flashing blue and red sirens and thousands of people flooding past were impossible to ignore as well, so the consulates’ SMSs came as little surprise and instead provided more than anything context to the oncoming commotion.
Read more