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EU urged to use regional funds for sustainability


Brussels, Belgium — European Ministers meeting on Monday (February 21) are being urged to reform Europe’s spending to ensure it supports a green economy.

CEE Bankwatch Network and Friends of the Earth Europe are calling on member states to commit to spending more of the billions of Euros of structural funds for new member states on energy savings and other green measures. The call follows warnings in a European Commission report that insufficient Structural and Cohesion Funds are being used for energy savings and environmental programmes.

“Central and eastern European countries are lagging behind in improving energy efficiency for residential buildings, burdening their populations with high energy costs and jeopardising their emissions reduction objectives, and this is just one example of a wasted opportunity to ensure spending has long-term benefits for the environment and people. Governments must use the money available to make energy efficiency measures in residential buildings their priority. This would ensure the creation of numerous green jobs and strengthen the European economy,” says Markus Trilling, EU Funds campaigner at CEE Bankwatch Network and Friends of the Earth Europe.

“Considering how beneficial greener spending would be to Europeans still struggling with the economic crisis, it is all the more disappointing to see the current tendency among Member States to refrain from clear commitments towards Europe’s sustainable development goals,” added Trilling.

Brook Riley, climate justice and energy campaigner at Friends of the Earth Europe says: “With less than 1% of the Community budget currently going to energy efficiency and renewables, the European Commission’s call for more and better funding is overdue but very welcome. Redirecting EU funding to energy efficiency and renewables will create new jobs, cut CO2 emissions, and save up to EUR1000 per household every year. But funding for sustainability goals must go hand in hand with strong legislative action: making the EU’s energy efficiency target binding would help ensure the funds are properly used.”

CEE Bankwatch Network and Friends of the Earth Europe have written to European Ministers outlining the priorities for reform of the EU Cohesion Policy to put Europe on the path of sustainable development. [1]

For more information, contact:

Brook Riley
Climate justice and energy campaigner
Friends of the Earth Europe
Tel: +32 (0) 2893 1030
Mob: +32 (0) 470 041 539
brook.riley AT foeeurope.org

Markus Trilling
EU funds campaign coordinator
CEE Bankwatch/ Friends of the Earth Europe
markus.trilling AT foeeurope.org
mob: + 32 (0) 484 056 636

Notes for the editor:

1. See the letter sent by CEE Bankwatch Network and FoEE to European Ministers at https://bankwatch.org/publications/document.shtml?x=2277803

Hundreds to protest against ArcelorMittal in Bosnia and Herzegovina


Zenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina — Hundreds of people are expected to attend a protest against illegal levels of air pollution from the local ArcelorMittal steelmill this Friday afternoon. The action has been organized through social media and is supported by local NGOs Dosta! and Zenica Eko-Forum.

The protest follows a similar one last Friday. Attended by roughly five hundred people, this was the largest action in the city’s history of environmental mobilization against the polluting plant. The two protests this month were triggered by particularly high emission levels in January: for example, the sulphur dioxide concentration reached alarm levels on 19 days last month.

Pippa Gallop from CEE Bankwatch Network explains the reasons for the discontent: “In 2005, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development approved a 25 million euros loan for ArcelorMittal to be used as working capital and for improving energy efficiency. The money was conditioned on the implementation of environmental investments.

“But, in more than five years, we have seen no improvements in air quality — on the contrary. ArcelorMittal is claiming that it resurrected the Zenica steelmill after the war. But what’s the benefit if the local people’s health is destroyed,” commented Gallop. “We demand of ArcelorMittal to finally install filters at the plant.”

For more information, contact:

in Zenica:

Samir Lemes (Zenica Eko-Forum)
Mob: +387 61 805 565

For background on ArcelorMittal and environmental issues:

Pippa Gallop,
Research Co-ordinator
CEE Bankwatch Network
pippa.gallop AT bankwatch.org

Notes:

EBRD information about its project: http://www.ebrd.com/pages/project/psd/2005/36116.shtml

Photo from last week’s protest: http://dosta.ba/latinica/svako-je-trovacica-svoje-sudbine-zenica-04-02-2011/

CEE countries must demand binding targets for energy efficiency, say NGOs


Brussels, Belgium — Ahead of Friday’s European Council on Energy, CEE Bankwatch Network is urging political will from both the Hungarian EU Presidency and other central and eastern European heads of state to ensure binding targets for improving energy efficiency by 20 percent by the year 2020 if the bloc is to play its part in meeting climate targets under the Europe 2020 strategy.

To realise this shift, according to Bankwatch at least one third of the Cohesion and Structural funds need to be earmarked for spending on energy efficiency and new renewable sources in order for the EU energy efficiency and consumption reduction goals to be met. While CEE states have both great potential and demand for energy efficiency spending, by the end of 2009 less than 20 percent of EU funds allocated for energy efficiency measures were spent. [1]

Ondrej Pasek, Bankwatch climate and energy campaigner, said “In the cases where EU financial instruments were designed in a sensible way to address the needs and specificities of the final beneficiaries, EU energy efficiency measures met with enormous interest in the region. Binding targets would help create the right environment to streamline energy efficiency measures in the region.”

“In CEE, energy efficiency measures could reduce between 40 to 60 percent of emissions coming from buildings, which in their turn account for 40 percent of all GhG emissions,” adds Pasek. „At this Council, member states should push for strong measures to improve energy efficiency in existing buildings, which represent the majority of buildings, with financial support from the Cohesion and Structural Funds in the future financial period.”

For more information, contact:

Ondrej Pasek
Climate and Energy Campaigner, Centrum pro dopravu a energetiku
Mobile +420 608 381 602

Anelia Stefanova
EU Affairs Coordinator, CEE Bankwatch Network
Mobile + 393338092492

Notes:

1. See the Bankwatch report ‘Potential unfulfilled: EU funding and Cohesion policy can do more for sustainable climate and energy development in central and eastern Europe’ – https://bankwatch.org/documents/Potential_unfulfilled.pdf

New EU resource flagship must steer energy savings and resource potential for central and eastern Europe


Brussels, Belgium — Reacting to yesterday’s communication by the European Commission of its ‘resource-efficient Europe – flagship initiative under the Europe 2020 strategy’ [1], CEE Bankwatch Network is welcoming the agenda set by Brussels to ensure the sustainable use of raw materials, their extraction and processing but warns that this rhetoric must translate into action if the EU and particularly new Member States are to meet ambitious energy and climate change objectives.

In a detailed submission sent to the Commission before the initiative’s publication [2], Bankwatch had urged that the initiative do more to mobilise domestic financial resources like those under the Structural and Cohesion Policy to help new Member States in central and eastern Europe (CEE) invest more sustainably in areas like resource and energy efficiency.

Marijan Galovic, Bankwatch resource campaigner said, “This new initiative is commendable for including objectives ‘to make the EU a ‘circular economy’ based on a recycling society with the aim of reducing waste generation and using waste as a resource.’

“At the same time, CEE countries need to link financial support from the EU to the principles outlined in the initiative to overcome years of inaction in areas like waste management, where EU funds were used primarily for burying and incinerating waste. Such a seismic shift in these countries, which currently lag behind old Member States in terms of recycling commitments, would pay a double dividend by reducing waste management costs and creating additional jobs.”

Bankwatch is also urging the Commission to rethink its strategic priorities in the area of energy efficiency, as research has shown that Structural and Cohesion Policy funds are not being fully employed in CEE where the potential is great to decrease energy consumption [3].

Ondrej Pasek, Bankwatch energy campaigner in the Czech Republic, said of the initiative, “We know that in the Czech Republic for instance, energy savings in the building sector alone could reach nearly 60 percent if just efficiency investments are made.

“So it is alarming that the Commission has recommended both carbon capture and storage and nuclear energy generation as its priority areas. CCS does not reduce energy consumption in the long-term and requires a continued reliance on dirty energy production like coal mining. Importing and processing uranium for nuclear energy from non-EU countries will also increase the energy dependence and vulnerability of the EU.”

For more information

Marijan Galovic
Resource campaigner, CEE Bankwatch Network
Mobile +385 988 499 82

Ondrej Pasek
Energy campaigner, CEE Bankwatch Network
Mobile +420 608 381 602

Notes for editors

1. Full details available from the Commission’s website at http://ec.europa.eu/resource-efficient-europe/

2. See this letter to Environment Commissioner Potocnik at the Bankwatch website: https://bankwatch.org/documents/letter_EC_ResourceEfficiencyInitiative_19Jan2011.pdf

3. See the Bankwatch report ‘Potential unfulfilled: EU funding and Cohesion policy can do more for sustainable climate and energy development in central and eastern Europe’ https://bankwatch.org/documents/Potential_unfulfilled.pdf

EBRD undermines Slovenian climate targets and governmental review with 200 million euros for dirty coal project

Ljubljana, Slovenia — Campaign groups today lambasted the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development’s (EBRD) signature of a 200 million euros loan for the Sostanj thermal power plant in Slovenia [1], calling it a blatant affront to Slovenia’s long-term climate targets. The signing also fails to await the outcome of a governmental review of the controversial project, expected in mid-February.

The criticisms by CEE Bankwatch Network and Slovenian NGO FOCUS of yesterday’s decision focus on claims by the EBRD and other institutional lenders like the European Investment Bank that the project will help bring Slovenia in line with binding emissions reduction targets of the European Union. While frequently citing that the new block is planned to reduce emissions per kilowatt-hour for the power plant as a whole, the fact that the new block would lock Slovenia in to heavy carbon use beyond 2050 is overlooked.

As the director of the Slovenian Government Office for Climate Change Jernej Stritih has admitted, projected carbon dioxide emissions from operation of Unit 6 at Sostanj would swallow Slovenia’s entire eligible greenhouse gas emissions within planned reduction targets for 2050 [2]

“The EBRD and the Sostanj management are clearly in a hurry to present a fait accompli with this unpopular project” said Piotr Trzaskowski, energy and climate coordinator for Bankwatch. “The Slovene Minister of the Economy has commissioned a full review of the investment, to disclose all the relevant information and make a final decision on the project, with a report due in mid-February. The project was supposed to be on hold until then, so why has the loan agreement now been signed?”

The loan forms part of a larger 1.2 billion euros project to replace five existing low efficiency units with a new 600 megawatt (MW) sixth unit, powered by one of the least efficient and most polluting energy sources, lignite.

For more information

Piotr Trzaskowski, Energy and climate coordinator, CEE Bankwatch Network
Tel: +48 509162988
piotr.trzaskowski AT bankwatch.org

Lidija Zivcic, Senior expert, FOCUS association for sustainable development
Tel: +386 15154080
lidija AT focus.si

Notes for editors

1. The Slovenian state-owned Termoelektrarna Sostanj thermal power plant is comprised of four existing lignite-powered generating units and two gas turbines, with total 809 MW installed capacity, accounting for one third of total electricity produced in the country.

2. In line with an EU-wide scenario of an 80 percent reduction of greenhouse gases by 2050 needed to keep global temperature increases below 2 degrees Celsius.

Polish environmental agency rules in favour of biodiversity with New Year’s resolution to cancel airports flawed permitting

Warsaw, Poland — Campaign groups are applauding last week’s decision by the national General Directorate for Environmental Protection to revoke consent for the planned Tykocin regional airport in northeast Poland, a 125 million euros project slated to receive more than 70 percent of its financing from the EU’s Structural Funds.

The ruling to withdraw environmental consent shelves the project indefinitely and asserts a formal appeal lodged by a coalition of Polish NGOs, including Bankwatch member Polish Green Network and regional offices of WWF and Birdlife.

Chief among the complainants concerns are numerous deficiencies in the project’s environmental impact assessment (EIA), including failures to account for at least four Important Bird Areas and Special Protection Areas (IBAs/SPAs) and the lack of a cumulative assessment of further planned airport development next to the Tykocin site.

Przemek Kalinka, Bankwatch EU funds campaigner in Poland, commented on the ruling, “It’s a commendable decision for the new year, as this poor quality EIA not only would have permitted the loss of valuable natural areas but also jeopardised passenger safety due in part to large bird populations in the Narew and Biebrza River Valleys that border the planned airport site.”

The General Directorate’s decision also states that the EIA fell short of necessary provisions under Article 6.3 of the EU’s Habitats Directive, a violation which would preclude access to Structural Funds.

“We’re hopeful that the renewed EIA process will be carried forward with renewed political will to explore alternative and sustainable transportation solutions for the area that ensures both the availability of important public funds for regional development and moreover the safety of nature and people.”

For more information, contact:

Przemek Kalinka,
EU Funds coordinator, Poland
Email: przemek AT bankwatch.org