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New report: EU funds must plug clean energy gap in central and eastern Europe

On the day that the European Commission launches its vision for 2020, its ‘Europe 2020 strategy’, a new report from CEE Bankwatch Network and Friends of the Earth Europe lays out how improved targeting of EU structural and cohesion billions for energy efficiency and renewables can get the EU – and particularly the new member states in the east – on track to meet and exceed emissions reduction targets for tackling climate change.

The new analysis from CEE Bankwatch Network and Friends of the Earth Europe [1] points to alarming shortcomings in how billions of EU funds earmarked for clean energy projects in the new member states are being deployed. It calls for big increases in the marginal allocations that the new member states have thus far given to clean energy schemes, citing widespread evidence from the ground that building efficiency schemes are ready to take off if they become more affordable and if EU money is better targeted.Markus Trilling, EU Funds coordinator for Bankwatch and Friends of the Earth Europe, said: “As the central and eastern European economies struggle through the economic crisis, and at the same time know they must play their part in combating the climate crisis, evidence from across the region shows that the low carbon development potential afforded by the EU funds for increased energy efficiency and renewables projects is not being tapped into.

“The EU’s new Europe 2020 strategy sets a course for economic development via green sustainable growth, but these aims need to be backed up by action and, crucially, funds. The European Commission and the member states must mainstream sustainability into all EU policies and ensure that all existing instruments, such as the structural and Cohesion funds, support the development of a sustainable, Europe-wide, low-carbon economy.

“Good practices such as the Green Invesment Scheme in Latvia, where energy efficiency measures are financed through surpluses from selling emissions allowances and combined with financial incentives, need to be promoted throughout the EU, while common obstacles, such as the administrative incapacity of local authorities to process sustainable EU-funded project applications as seen in Bulgaria, must be lowered.”

Today also saw the launch of the website www.sustainableeufunds.org – the site, a new Bankwatch initiative, will be a campaign support centre for NGOs from across Europe that are working to ensure sustainable use of the EU Funds.

For more information

Markus Trilling, EU Funds coordinator
CEE Bankwatch Network/Friends of the Earth Europe
Mobile +420 773557529
Email: markus.trilling AT foeeurope.org

Greig Aitken, Bankwatch media coordinator
Mobile: +420 605 216705
Email: press AT bankwatch.org

Notes for editors:

1. CEE Bankwatch Network and Friends of the Earth Europe have worked together over the last decade to ensure more sustainable use of EU funds in central and eastern Europe, in this time compiling a range of ground-breaking analyses that have raised the alarm about ineffective, non-sustainable use of EU money in central and eastern Europe.

The new report, Potential unfulfilled: EU funding and Cohesion policy can do more for sustainable climate and energy development in central and eastern Europe is available in pdf format here.

A short video clip introducing the report can be seen below or on youtube.

Transparency allergy reappears at EIB, crisis billions still cloaked in confidentiality

CEE Bankwatch Network today criticised the European Investment Bank (EIB) for adopting a new transparency policy that persists in keeping the final destination of billions of publicly backed money unknown to the public.

Information on loans from commercial banks across Europe, that have received credit lines from the EIB, to final beneficiaries such as small- and medium-sized companies, public authorities, mid-companies, investments funds or equity funds remains unobtainable to the public, under the EIB’s new transparency policy signed off this week by the bank’s directors. This type of lending is a central – and growing – plank of the EIB’s economic crisis response. [1]

Anna Roggenbuck, Bankwatch’s EIB Campaign coordinator, said: “The EIB’s unwillingness to permit just a chink of light on its lending through financial intermediaries is symptomatic of the new policy as a whole. If one of the lessons of the economic crisis is the need for greater transparency in the financial system, then the message has not got through to the EU’s bank.”

Bankwatch’s assessment of the new transparency policy finds that it leaves the EIB as the least transparent of the major public international financial institutions.

Anna Roggenbuck continued: “In spite of a wide range of inputs from civil society groups calling on the EIB to take a more pro-active approach to information disclosure in the interests of the environment and good value for EU money, the EIB’s discomfort with real openness for its lending has again come to the surface.

“Marginal changes have come about from this review of the EIB’s transparency policy, with the result that for the foreseeable future the EIB’s response to the economic crisis will continue to be exclusively about big lending numbers, with far too many gaps in information to allow for a proper assessment of what good, and potentially bad, projects the EIB is supporting in the EU’s recovery efforts.”

A positive step forward in the new policy, that has come about because of the EIB’s requirements to adhere to the Lisbon Treaty, concerns better access to EIB documents where there is now a clear commitment that exceptions to disclosure will be treated narrowly and after analysis of individual cases, an improvement on the EIB’s previous Public Disclosure Policy.

CEE Bankwatch Network also welcomed the refinements made to the EIB’s Complaints Mechanism which provide it with operational independence within the EIB structure and which have made the complaint procedure itself considerably clearer.

For more information

Anna Roggenbuck
EIB Campaign Coordinator, CEE Bankwatch Network
Tel: 004891 8803872
Mobile: 0048 509970424
Email: annar AT bankwatch.org

Notes for editors:

1. The new EIB transparency policy is available at the bank’s website.

Over 20 percent of the EIB’s annual lending goes to financial intermediaries.

 

Chelopech gold mine plans frozen, campaigners call for cyanide leaching to be binned

An announcement from Dundee Precious Metals that it is freezing plans on its investment at the Chelopech gold and copper mine in central Bulgaria because of ongoing legal challenges has been welcomed by the Cyanide-free Bulgaria coalition.

As reported in the Bulgarian media yesterday, [1] Dundee’s announcement comes after more than five years of problems and controversies surrounding the Canadian company’s plans to introduce cyanide leaching technologies in order to extract gold at the Chelopech mine.

With the legal appeals process [2] concerning permits for stage two of the Chelopech mine development expected to last upwards of two years, the Cyanide-free Bulgaria coalition has written to Dundee Precious Metals, encouraging the company to use this hiatus period to conduct further research into technologies safer than cyanide and to carry out improved public consultations.

Daniel Popov, Bankwatch national coordinator in Bulgaria and member of the Cyanide Free Bulgaria coalition, said: “With this statement of its intentions, and while we wait for the outcome of the legal processes, Dundee Precious Metals has some time to finally get things right on the Chelopech project. Economically viable solutions that are also safer for human health and the environment are available.

“Dundee Precious Metals should reassess the project by organising much improved public consultation and dialogue with those communities living downstream of the mine that may potentially be affected by the introduction of any new mining technology at Chelopech. We would like to see Dundee abandoning the cyanide approach, and it should devote some energy to carrying out a better analysis of the other available technologies that are better suited to the hydro-geological conditions in Bulgaria.”

The Cyanide Free Bulgaria coalition has also pressed Dundee Precious Metals to ensure that certain of its legal responsibilities regarding health and safety measures at Chelopech are not delayed or jeopardised by the company putting the project on hold. [3]

For more information

Daniel Popov
Center for Environmental Information and Education/CEE Bankwatch Network
Tel: +359 886 818 794
Email: dpopov AT bankwatch.org

Notes for editors:

1. See here.

2. Background on the legal actions and the role played by the ‘Cyanide Free Bulgaria’ coalition is available here.

3. The health and safety measures include preventing the discharge of waste waters at the Chelopech mine exceeding the limits of the discharge permit, as well as the strengthening of the wall of the tailings management facility at the mining complex.

Bulgarian parliament hears the anti-cyanide concerns of thousands

Today at the Bulgarian parliament’s Petitions Committee three public petitions related to controversial mining initiatives were heard, in a process described by ‘Cyanide Free Bulgaria’ campaigners as encouraging and not before time.

Two of the petitions – one of 14 400 signatures supporting a legally binding cyanide ban across Bulgaria, the other ‘For a clean Maritza River’ aiming to prevent industrial pollution from mining – had been overlooked for two years, but following re-submission to the Petitions Committee in November last year were finally granted a hearing in the committee. Daniel Popov, Bankwatch national coordinator in Bulgaria and member of the Cyanide Free Bulgaria coalition, said: The fact that these petitions have been heard in the Bulgarian parliament’s committee at all represents good progress for the thousands of people and hundreds of communities across Bulgaria that face the prospect of mining involving lethal chemicals taking place in their areas, next to their water sources, and usually without consultation.

There is growing momentum for a cyanide ban, such as the ban now in place in Hungary, and the Petition Committee will hopefully take on board the arguments presented today and issue a report that will back a cyanide ban in Bulgaria.

The third petition to receive a hearing today was submitted against the granting of a permit to Canadian mining firm Dundee Precious Metals for drilling and investigating gold deposits in the Rhodope mountains. The petition was submitted by an Initiative Committee from neighbouring villages, the biggest of which Chepelare is a small-scale ski resort.

Dundee Precious Metals is the promoter of several major mining investments in Bulgaria that seek to use cyanide technology. The approval of the environmental impact assessment for Dundee’s mining project at Chelopech was cancelled in November last year by the Supreme Administrative Court following a complaint submitted by the Cyanide Free Bulgaria coalition, although currently Bulgaria’s Ministry of Environment is appealing this decision. [1]

For more information

Daniel Popov
Center for Environmental Information and Education/CEE Bankwatch Network
Tel: +359 886 818 794
Email: dpopov AT bankwatch.org

Notes for editors:

1. Recent developments in the cyanide free Bulgaria campaign are available in this December 2009 press release.

Concerns mount over cyanide rush in Bulgarian mining projects, European Commission urged to intervene

Two Bankwatch groups and the members of the Cyanide Free Bulgaria coalition outlined today at a press conference in Sofia the ongoing problematic issues hanging over the proposed introduction of controversial cyanide leaching at the Chelopech mining project and with the Bulgarian government’s handling of the environmental procedures for wider use of cyanide in mining projects across the country.

The Center for Environmental Information and Education has lodged a formal complaint with the European Commission [1] related to infringements of EU law associated with the Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC) permitting process for the cyanide installation at phase 2 of the Chelopech project, being promoted by Canadian mining company Dundee Precious Metals that has already received two loans from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) totalling USD 25 million for phase 1 of the Chelopech project, as well as a USD 4.5 million loan from the EBRD for its operations in Armenia. [2]

Daniel Popov, of the Center for Environmental Information and Education and Bankwatch national coordinator, said: “The IPPC permitting for the use of cyanide technology at the Chelopech mine took place without due consultation with the concerned public downstream from the mine which we believe to be in breach of EU law, the Aarhus Convention on public participation and also Bulgarian legislation. Given the risks involved both for people and the natural environment with the use of cyanide technology, we call on the Commission to fully assess the extensive evidence presented in our complaint.”

Representatives of the Cyanide Free Bulgaria Coalition also raised the deficiencies of the environmental impact assessment (EIA) procedure in Bulgaria which is subordinated to political decisions and economic justification, and thus fails to secure the protection of the environment and human health.

The Chelopech Mining cyanide project is one of two recently approved investments in cyanide leaching of gold in Bulgaria and at least two more proposals are at the preparation stage. A judgment of the Supreme Administrative Court accepted the arguments of the Coalition and cancelled the approval of the Chelopech Mining EIA on November 4 this year.

Fidanka Bacheva-McGrath, Bankwatch’s Balkan coordinator, said: “In January it will be 10 years since the Baia Mare accident in Romania that compelled the European Commission to improve the EU’s mining safety standards, bolstering accident prevention and accident response. Then Environment Commissioner Margot Wallstrm remarked that ‘there is the need to further embrace a culture of openness, transparency and participation in this region.’

“The permitting process for the Chelopech Mining cyanide project has breached national and international legislation demonstrating that decision makers in Sofia still regard transparency and public participation as a nuisance, rather than as a prerequisite for securing environmentally and socially responsible investments.”

The Chelopech case in Bulgaria is one of three gold mine projects financially backed by the EBRD that features in a new report from CEE Bankwatch Network entitled “Between a rock and a hard place – How local communities pay the cost of EBRD-financed gold mining projects.” [3]

Pippa Gallop, Bankwatch’s Research coordinator, said: From a cyanide spill injuring hundreds of people in Kyrgyzstan to land subsidence in Armenia and deficient public consultation in Bulgaria, EBRD-financed gold mining projects have had unenviable results so far.

“If the EBRD wants to change this it needs to stop financing the use of cyanide in countries with weak regulation, establish no-go zones for mining projects, such as glaciers, protected areas and ancient forests, and ensure that it only finances projects which have been subject to public consultation in line with national legislation and the Aarhus Convention.”

For more information

Daniel Popov
Center for Environmental Information and Education/Bankwatch
Tel: +359 886 818 794
Email: dpopov AT bankwatch.org

Fidanka Bacheva-McGrath
Bankwatch Balkan coordinator
Tel: +359 899 876 095
E-mail: fidankab AT bankwatch.org

Notes for editors

1. The formal complaint to the European Commission is online and can be downloaded here.

2. More background information about the Chelopech project – phases 1 and 2 – can be seen at Bankwatch’s web page dedicated to this project.

3. The new Bankwatch report Between a rock and a hard place – How local communities pay the cost of EBRD-financed gold mining projects is available to download here.

The report has been prepared to input into the EBRD’s development of a new sectoral policy on its mining projects.

New video testimonies from Bulgarian women – “Mining re-sisters fighting against mining injustices” can be seen at Friends of the Earth International’s youtube channel.

Violations at EBRD power lines project spark clashes between police and villagers in Ukraine


A project financed by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) in the Odessa region of Ukraine has this week been the scene of clashes between 300 police officers and villagers resisting the routing of high voltage power lines through their village. The EUR 25.8 million Odessa High Voltage Grid Upgrade project is being implemented by Ukraine’s national electricity company Ukrenergo in violation of agreements with the EBRD, the international public development bank and backer of the project. [1]

Signed off by the EBRD in 2005, the project’s environmental impact assessment (EIA) deemed that the power lines were to bypass the village of Usatove. However, Ukrenergo’s plans to proceed with the routing of the power lines in very close vicinity to local houses and streets have led to months of resistance by local inhabitants, which came to a head on Monday this week as police arrived in the village to free up space for project construction workers (see the embedded video). [2]

Clashes on Monday (see video below) left five women seeking medical assistance. With ongoing police backing, Ukrenergo has continued its construction efforts in the village, working overnight, as villagers reacted by blocking roads. This morning five local men were beaten and arrested on the site.

Yury Urbansky, of the National Ecological Centre of Ukraine and Bankwatch National coordinator, said: “Ukrenergo’s blatant disregard for the terms of the EUR 25 million EBRD loan is shocking and is provoking fear and discontent in Usatove’s inhabitants. The company is seeking further EBRD assistance for another transmission lines project which is at the public consultations stage and also involves controversial routing and public safety concerns.

“But events in the last few days show clearly that the company is unwilling to consider the voices of local people, and it has apparently little concern for the European standards of project implementation that an EBRD loan is supposed to provide. The EBRD should be halting any further project negotiations with Ukrenergo until the village of Usatovo is safe from harm.”

The South Ukraine Transmission Project is the other major transmission line project promoted by Ukrenergo currently and being considered for funding by the EBRD. The draft EIA for the project is now open for public discussion, though Bankwatch has already alerted the bank to consultation shortcomings. [3]

For more information

Yury Urbansky
National Ecological Centre of Ukraine/CEE Bankwatch Network
Tel: +38050 512 3222
Email: urbik AT necu.org.ua

Notes for editors

1. EBRD project documentation can be viewed at the EBRD website.

2. See also a Ukrainian TV news reports and video from the site showing the violent clashes here.

3. EBRD project documentation for the proposed South Ukraine Transmission Project can be viewed here.

A Bankwatch press release outlining the public consultation deficiencies to date can be viewed at the Bankwatch website.