Dust, displacement, intimidation – Mongolian herders are under pressure by iron ore mine
Blog entry | 9 December, 2014Herders in the Mongolian Gobi Altai mountains are facing pollution and displacement by an iron ore mine. The mining company Altain Khuder responds to criticism with intimidation. The financier, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, is not doing enough to protect herders’ rights.
Read moreLetters to EBRD regarding loan for Naftogaz pipeline
Publication | 9 December, 2014The letters were sent shortly before the EBRD’s board of directors are to approve a loan for the Naftogaz Emergency Pipeline Upgrade and Modernisation project. Since the project has not yet passed through all environmental and social procedures, Bankwatch asked the EBRD’s president and its board in separate letters to postpone the board decision. Letter to the EBRD president >> (pdf)
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Boskov Most suspected of breaching Council of Europe nature protection convention
Press release | 5 December, 2014Skopje/ Strasbourg – The Standing Committee of the Bern Convention, a binding international legal instrument in the field of nature conservation for signatory countries, announced today (pdf) that it will open a case file to address the complaint made by Eko-svest about the planned hydropower plants in Mavrovo national park.
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How much will the Macedonian hydropower plant Boskov Most really cost?
Blog entry | 5 December, 2014The total costs of the Boskov Most hydropower plant project in Macedonia will possibly cost more than twice the projected EUR 84 million, considering that many aspects have so far not been studied or remain unresolved.
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Energy security for Europe or profit for Lukoil?
Blog entry | 4 December, 2014Despite the Russian invasion in Ukraine leading to EU and US sanctions against Moscow and major Russian energy companies, public banks supported by EU countries are just gearing up to offer a one billion dollar loan to Russian company Lukoil for gas extraction in Azerbaijan.
Read moreNECU and Bankwatch statement on the incident at Zaporizhye nuclear plant in Ukraine
Press release | 3 December, 2014Statement on an incident at the Zaporizhye nuclear power plant in Ukraine, where a power transformer dysfunction occurred on November 28th.
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Sostanj lignite plant: A mistake not to be repeated
Press release | 2 December, 2014Ljubljana — A new briefing by Slovenian NGO Focus shows how misguided assessments of future viability and corruption led to TES6 lignite unit costing more than double the estimated amount, bringing annual losses of tens of millions of euros, and creating only a fraction of the number of jobs promised.
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EIB and EBRD transparency nosedive needs fixing – and fast
Publication | 2 December, 2014Operational transparency standards at the European Investment Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development continue to deteriorate, according to the 2014 Aid Transparency Index (ATI) published in October by aid watchdog Publish What You Fund (PWYF).
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EBRD-EIB role in Slovak private equity gas debacle questioned
Publication | 2 December, 2014The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has revealed, in a letter of late October to Bankwatch’s Slovak member group Friends of the Earth-CEPA, that the EnerCap Power Fund, a private equity investor, has pulled out of the controversial COGEN gas power plant being developed in the northern Slovakian town of Považský Chlmec.
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Another chip off the EBRD block – Kronospan expansion in Belarus
Publication | 2 December, 2014In October this year, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) approved an up to EUR 50 million loan to a Belarusian subsidiary of the Austrian company Kronospan for the expansion of a particleboard facility at Smorgon in the Grodno region of Belarus. Belarus will provide a guaranteed return on investment for both Kronospan and the EBRD. With the country’s rich wood resources, generous state tax incentives, weak legal environment, toothless trade unions, cheap labour and a generally stifled civil society, the EBRD and its client are not likely to run into the same environmental and legal difficulties experienced by Kronospan in other eastern European countries.
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