A 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 moreJoint civil society letter to EIB’s President Werner Hoyer on Bank’s Environmental and Social Sustainability Framework (ESSF)
Publication | 14 September, 2021Bankwatch, together with civil society organisations worldwide, is closely following the ongoing review of the EIB’s Environmental and Social Sustainability Framework (ESSF). In this context, we sent several joint CSO submissions highlighting concrete
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.
Read more‘Highway of Destruction’ raises questions about effective and safe access to remedy and poor human rights safeguards at the EIB
Publication | 13 July, 2021This briefing summarises the information from the report Highway of Destruction, the result of research commissioned by CEE Bankwatch Network member group Polish Green Network and carried out by Kenyan researcher Naomi Barasa in July 2020. The study is
Read moreHow to ensure public control over projects funded by development banks in non-democratic regimes
Blog entry | 5 July, 2021In a series of video tutorials, we demonstrate tools civil society organisations and activists from Uzbekistan can use to have a say about projects supported by development banks that may affect their communities and the environment.
Read moreNGOs letter on the EIB’s review process of the Environmental and Social Sustainability Framework
Publication | 24 June, 2021This joint advocacy letter, endorsed by 35 environmental CSOs, urge the European Investment Bank (EIB) to ensure a meaningful public consultation process during the ongoing Bank’s Environmental and Social Sustainability Framework review. We call on Ban
Read moreLast call for EU bank to uphold UN treaty on transparency
Blog entry | 19 May, 2021For too long, transparency and public participation have been a low priority for the European Investment Bank (EIB). Now it appears the world’s largest international lender is even in breach of international environmental law on access to information and public participation.
Read moreA case study on the Beli Kamen and Komalj hydropower plants on the Crni Rzav and Ribnica Rivers in Serbia
Publication | 22 April, 2021The small hydropower plants Beli Kamen and Komalj are built on the Crni Rzav and Ribnica Rivers of the Drina basin in western Serbia. Both plants are interconnected, as they use water from the same intakes and were financed by the European Investment B
Read moreScientific studies reveal river ‘sickness’ from small hydropower plants in Serbia
Blog entry | 21 April, 2021Projects financed by the EIB through secretive intermediary banks destroy 10 km of supposedly protected rivers for only 2 MW of energy.
Read moreTashlyk hydro pumped storage plant, Ukraine
Publication | 7 April, 2021On 12 May 2020, the European Investment Bank (EIB) announced that it is considering financing the completion of the Tashlyk hydro pumped storage plant (HPSP) project. The Ukrainian state-owned enterprise National Nuclear Energy Generating Company (Ener
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