In Bulgaria, marking an air pollution tragedy with another one in the making
Blog entry | 13 December, 2021Bankwatch member group Za Zemiata illuminates Sofia’s thermal power plant to protest plans for the construction of a waste incineration facility that would poison the capital.
Read moreNever mind the protected areas!
Blog entry | 23 November, 2021Hidden behind a financial intermediary, the EIB has supported the destruction of the Mojanska River in Montenegro. Yet local inspectors claim nothing is wrong. Will the EIB now take corrective action?
Read moreMajor setback on transparency at the EIB
Press release | 18 November, 2021Yesterday, the European Investment Bank (EIB) – the financial arm of the EU – approved a new Transparency Policy that will allow the bank to keep hiding information on projects it finances despite their potential impacts on people and the environment.
Read moreThe EIB cannot become a ‘climate leader’ while failing on transparency
Press release | 10 November, 2021The European Investment Bank (EIB) – the financial arm of the EU – is about to approve a new Transparency Policy that will allow the bank to keep hiding information on projects it considers to finance despite their potential impacts on people and the environment.
Read moreNew report: European Investment Bank hydropower failures necessitate tighter rules
Press release | 21 October, 2021The European Investment Bank has financed a series of damaging hydropower projects since 2010 which underline the need to tighten its environmental and social standards, according to a new report published today by CEE Bankwatch Network and EuroNatur.
Read moreKenya energy project exposes the dark side of EU development funds
Blog entry | 13 October, 2021A third of the European Investment Bank (EIB) portfolio in 2020 went through financial intermediaries, a channel that has already enabled multiple projects with devastating consequences for nature and communities with virtually zero accountability. The ongoing review of the EIB’s environmental and social standards is a crucial opportunity to ensure transparency and proper scrutiny of all projects supported with European public money.
Read moreEIB misinterprets EU’s development finance needs
Blog entry | 12 October, 2021The European Investment Bank (EIB) has long been seeking to take a more significant role in the EU’s overseas development effort. But it has also been resisting calls to upgrade its policy on the environmental, social and human rights ramifications of the projects it supports.
Read moreBudapest airport torments neighbours as expansion project evades environmental checks
Blog entry | 11 October, 2021The expansion of Budapest’s Ferenc Liszt International Airport, financed by the European Investment Bank (EIB), illustrates how big infrastructure projects are promoted at the expense of people and the environment, ignoring EU environmental requirements and the EIB’s own environmental and social standards. However, what is most striking about this case is the fact that a project with EU financial support, has ended up trapping citizens in miserable lives only few are able to flee.
Read moreA third of European Investment Bank lending evades environmental and social rules
Blog entry | 21 September, 2021More than a third of the European Investment Bank (EIB)’s EU lending is carried out via intermediaries. Yet most of this money disappears into a black hole, with no information published about the final beneficiaries and no checks by the EIB about their environmental and social impacts. The EIB’s new safeguard framework is supposed to address this, but the draft text leaves the Bank far behind its peers.
Read moreThe EU Bank about to fail becoming a responsible lender
Press release | 6 August, 2021The European Investment Bank (EIB) is closing today the public consultation as part of the review of its Environmental and Social Sustainability Framework. A large group of civil society organisations (CSOs) sent today written contributions highlighting their disappointment with the EIB proposals, and calling for concrete actions to ensure that the EIB will operate as a responsible lender in the future.
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