Updates on the European Investment Bank

Letter to EIB President Maystadt requesting the bank’s withdrawal from the Moscow – St.Petersburg motorway project routed through Khimki forest

While the EIB has repeatedly assured of its efforts to improve the project’s planning and public consultation process, recent developments show that these efforts have not been successful. We believe the time has now come for the bank to clearly and publicly withdraw from the project.

Missing in action – The winners, the losers and the unknowns of the European Investment Bank’s anti-crisis SME offensive in central and eastern Europe

In 2008, the EIB’s deployed an additional EUR 15 billion to its ‘global loan’ lending – as a response to the financial crisis and the difficulty for small and media sized enterprises to access finance. In essence, the package appears to have remained to a large extent in the intermediary banks, the initial recipients of the funding.

Getting from A to B while cutting out the GHGs – Is some ambitious, climate-real transport lending about to turn up at the EIB?

In the face of official EU statements stressing the need to decarbonise Europe’s transport sector, our analysis has found that a rise in EIB lending between 2006 and 2009 for roads and aviation has coincided with a dramatic decrease in EIB lending for urban public transport.

The transport sector in the EU must de-carbonize. Is the EIB ready to contribute to it?

The issue paper provides facts about the EIB’s performance in the transport sector since the approval of the current transport policy in 2007. While transport investments represent a large share of the EIB’s portfolio in the EU 27, transport GHG emissions in the EU are continuously rising.

Letter to European Commissioners regarding recent developments and ongoing pressures on civil society in and around Khimki

Have you voted in the 2010 worst EU lobbying awards yet?

ArcelorMittal, one of the candidates for the worst EU lobby award, is the world’s largest private steel company, producing 10 per cent of the world’s steel. It is also one of Europe’s largest emitters of CO2. Yet the company successfully lobbied the European Commission on behalf of Europe’s biggest polluters to continue getting free greenhouse gas emissions permits until at least 2020.

Baseball bat attack hospitalises Khimki Forest activist, latest violence connected with controversial Moscow-St Petersburg motorway plans

Environmental and human rights activist Konstantin Fetisov of Khimki near Moscow was today assaulted near his house by unknown assailants wielding a baseball bat and is now in a serious condition in hospital.

Rotten perceptions, grim reality Turkmenistan off the agenda in European Parliament, Nabucco still nowhere near fit for purpose

Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index, launched today, confirms Turkmenistan’s position as one of the world’s least democratic regimes. Promoters of the Nabucco gas pipeline project have opted to adopt a surprisingly tolerant approach to Turkmenistan’s endemic failings.

Bankwatch Mail 46

In this issue: A sustainable EU budget – it’s time to cut the crap * Khimki forest reprieve brings no cessation of underhand tactics * EU funds flows for smart flood prevention can save billions and lives * Rip it up and almost start again – New EU funds priorities for Hungary * EU funds for Latvia’s environment up in smoke * Conference – The private sector turn: Private equity, financial intermediaries and what they mean for development (November 22, London) * EBRD financial sector strategy revision reveals few lessons learned from crisis * Energy and transport failings in the east – a challe

Bankwatch input to EC consultation on an EU initiative on concessions

The European Commission (EC) has recently invited inputs to its consultation on an initiative on concessions that aims to improve the rules for concession contracts in the EU. PPP advocates insist on their cost-effectiveness, timely completion rates and the sharing of financial risk – yet so far the evidence for these claims is decidedly mixed. In our comments we call for a thorough and independent assessment of the performance of PPPs so far and their financial and social impact.