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In Poland positive signs from Commission that EU Funds for rails stay for rails


As Bankwatch earlier reported, governments in Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic are planning to reallocate EU funds from sectors such as education, regional development and rail development towards the construction of motorways. These moves triggered letters of protest from nongovernmental organisations in both Slovakia (pdf) and Poland (Polish language) to European decision makers and authorities.

For now it appears that the Commission remains sceptical of such reallocations. Hope remains that it will not allow a compromise of EU goals to support environmentally-friendly transport modes as set out in its Europe 2020 strategy.

Replacing the ‘motorways uber alles’ attitude in CEE countries with a focus on sustainable rail and urban transport is long overdue. (Look out for our upcoming newsletter Bankwatch Mail 47 for more background information on the case.)

Image: To strenghten environmentally friendly transport in central and eastern Europe, EU funds spending needs to stay on track and not shifted to more motorways. (Original image CC 2.0 by Vlasta Juricek – http://bit.ly/dSqS6k)

Tirana Botanical Garden threatened by ring road

Last week, more than 33 Albanian civil society organizations — including Bankwatch’s Albanian partner organisation EDEN — sent an open letter (pdf) to Albanian Prime Minister Sali Berisha, protesting against the potential destruction of the Botanical Garden in Tirana.

The Botanical Garden is threatened by the construction of the Tirana Outer Ring Road (TORR) which started last week without the project being disclosed to the public for consultations.

The TORR project currently being implemented is the second one devised for this purpose.

The first one, promoted by the Tirana Municipality, had been planned to pass very near to the Botanical Garden and destroy the surrounding walls. The Environmental Impact Assessment was prepared in September 2009 by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). The bank had also planned to invest 25 million euros in the construction of the TORR, but eventually withdrew its financial support due to unsteady interest from the Albanian authorities.

The current (and second) project, prepared in August 2010 and promoted by the General Road Directorate, involves damage to a quarter of the Botanical Garden territory. In both projects, public consultation was missing or was conducted improperly.

The Tirana Botanical Garden is unique in Albania for its scientific, academic and recreative values. Founded in 1971, the Botanical Garden has an area of 15 hectares. 1400 species and subspecies are grown in it, mainly from the Albanian flora. The Botanical Garden, together with the National Herbarium and the Natural Science Museum, is part of the only Academic Institute of Flora and Fauna in Albania.

Albanian NGOs writing to Berisha demanded that the construction of TORR be conducted in a transparent manner and in accordance with Albanian legislation, which requires that the concerned public be involved in the planning process of projects with an impact on the environment. NGOs say they are not opposed to the construction of the TORR itself, but that alternative routes must be found that do not threaten the integrity of the Botanical Garden.

(Original image CC 2.0 by flickr user Randy Pertiet – http://bit.ly/gsFe9v)

Khimki defender Evgenia Chirikova is a woman of courage, literally now

Evgenia Chirikova, the leading figure of the Movement to Defend Khimki Forest has yesterday received the US Woman of Courage Award to honour her relentless efforts to save the Khimki Forest near Moscow from being transformed into a motorway.

No, this didn’t come as a big surprise for us at Bankwatch. US Vice President Joseph Biden handed Evgenia the award when meeting with Russian civil society as part of his visit to Moscow.

Probably no one who has closely followed Evgenia’s fight would hesitate to credit her with extra-ordinary bravery. She has been arrested and threatened by authorities. Colleagues from the Khimki movement have been severely beaten. Even children have been detained after protests against the motorway.

The growing international recognition that Chirikova and the Movement to Defend Khimki Forest receive puts even more pressure on European public banks not to get involved in the tangle of Russian toll road constructions. Russian NGOs have already urged President Barroso to make sure this doesn’t happen.

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) for one withdrew from financing the motorway section through the Khimki Forest, but apparently is still ready to finance other sections of the same motorway. A move like this would be a slap in the face of Chirikova who is not giving up her struggle easily.

But for now, congratulations, Evgenia! And congratulations to all the other Khimki Forest defenders who have been indirectly honoured through this award.

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More information on the Khimki Forest and the motorway section slated to pass through it are available on our website.

Image: A picture from the award ceremony (taken from http://www.ecmo.ru/news/n-1615/)

CEE governments derail EU funds for sustainable transport and social spending in favor of motorways


According to the groups, the reallocation is contradictory to both national legislation and EU funds decision-making rules. The European Commission is expected to rule on the acceptability of the reallocation in the upcoming days.

Authorities in Slovakia are planning to reallocate EU funds initially destined for the support of education, science, employment, regional development, the fight against social exclusion as well as rail development in favour of disputable construction of motorways [1]. Similar moves are also planned in Poland and the Czech Republic.

According to the Slovakian NGOs, the planned reallocation represents a vast intervention into the whole system of structural funds in Slovakia in the current programming period, which will affect the realisation of cohesion policy priorities. Moreover, the reallocation was decided by the Slovakian government without any discussions with socio-economic partners, a direct violation of the partnership principle, one of the pillars of the Cohesion policy (as well as of the EU itself). Furthermore, the planned reallocation in favour of highway construction contradicts the goals of the EU set in the Europe 2020 strategy, which stresses the need to support the development of environmentally friendly transport modes with low carbon intensity, such as rail.

While the reallocations in Slovakia have received the most public attention, Polish authorities are also considering shifting over 1.2 billion euros from railway projects to express roads for the 2007-2013 period. In the Czech Republic too, 380 millions euros are planned to be shifted from rail to road, though the EC is still to rule on the acceptability of such a reallocation.

[1] 180 million euros will be reallocated from science and education to road building in Slovakia.

Image: EU funded investments into education, employment, regional development, railways, and more are to be steamrolled in Slovakia in favour of roads. (Original image CC 2.0 by flickr user Nedster78 – http://bit.ly/hLclnP)

Shadow report on discrimination in Serbia doesn’t cast the best light on EIB and EBRD

Discrimination against the Roma minority in Serbia is an issue bound to be discussed during the ongoing 78th session of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, when Serbia’s official report to the Committee will be scrutinised. While Serbia is only one among many European countries where Roma suffer from discrimination, a possibly distinct feature is the first hand experience of the European public banks in the matter.

Bankwatch’s Serbian member group Center for Ecology and Sustainable Development (CEKOR) has worked together with three Serbian human rights organisations on a shadow report (pdf) complementing the country’s official statement. Analysing the legal and factual status of Roma in Serbia in general, the shadow report draws heavily on examples from the Gazela bridge rehabilitation project in Belgrade.

Both the European Investment Bank (EIB) and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) are involved in the project and thus at least indirectly in a resettlement process that includes the discrimination of 178 Roma families who have been threatened, evicted without proper consultation and in many cases resettled to remote places, usually without access to work, and some without sufficient hygienic installations. (Details can be witnessed on Bankwatch’s video blog Out of Sight.)

The shadow report’s examples illustrate how existing regulations and compensation measures have been either ignored or fulfilled merely on paper by the Belgrade authorities. And while the EIB and EBRD may have only limited influence on domestic legislation, their failure to take a pro-active stance in properly working with the Serbian authorities early on in the Gazela project has resulted in grave problems later including apparent human rights violations connected to the resettlement.

CEKOR’s and Bankwatch’s hope is that the outcome of the UN review process not only leads to improvements in the Serbian legal and institutional framework, but that an acknowledgement of the shadow report by one of the United Nation’s core human rights instruments can at the very least support what we’ve been telling the EIB and EBRD for more than four years now.

Not least we hope that both institutions learn from the farce in Gazela and pay much more attention to situations this sensitive and controversial. The Serbian authorities are in danger of repeating the mistakes from Gazela in a new project bearing an uncanny resemblance to Gazela. And they are again set to receive funding from the EIB and EBRD.

EBRD can’t stay away from Russian motorways – Khimki destruction goes ahead while women and children are being arrested

Yesterday, police in Khimki arrested an activist of the Movement for the Defence of Khimki Forest. The activist Alla Chernyshova and her daughters of 3 and 6 had to spend more than five hours in custody where she was questioned as the main suspect for a false bomb threat.

Ironically the supposed alert had been used by the police itself to prevent demonstrators and media from entering a construction site in Khimki, near Moscow on February 1.

The arrest constitutes yet another arbitrary measure by Russian authorities in carrying out construction of the Moscow – St.Petersburg motorway through the Khimki Forest. This routing has been subject to vehement opposition by local inhabitants which has led to repeated protests and detainment of activists.

A public environmental assessment, handed over to President Medvedev on February 1, concludes that widening the existing highway, outside Khimki Forest, is the best alternative (pdf). The assessment was initiated by a coalition of environmental NGOs and carried out by 18 experts in the field of environmental protection, environmental law, forestry, urban planning and transport development.

Yet public interest and environmental concerns do not seem to outweigh the prospects for profit from the commercial development of Khimki Forest – one of the few natural areas left for inhabitants of the wider Moscow area.

While the motorway section through Khimki Forest is likely to receive no funding from European public banks, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has apparently confirmed its readiness to get involved in later motorway sections, according to Sergey Kostin, head of Russia’s state road-building company Avtodor [rus].

Alla Chernyshova’s and many similar cases continue to cast a damning light on the Moscow St.Petersburg motorway project and its promoters. The EBRD and other European public banks may not have financed the Khimki section but it would be nave in the extreme to imagine that other sections of the motorway will not involve similarly underhand dealings. It would be madness for any European public investor to get involved after the Khimki Forest fiasco.

Although Alla was allowed to go home and is now formally a witness in the case, the investigator informed her she remained the main suspect. She has been summoned to appear at the police station again today.