September 6, 2010 | Read more
Budapest, Hungary — Reacting to today’s announcement by the Nabucco Consortium that international public banks are now officially commencing their appraisal of the EUR 7.9 billion (estimated) Nabucco gas pipeline project, watchdog group CEE Bankwatch Network called on the international financiers to reject what would be record European public finance for the project and instead to focus on the financing of clean energy in central and eastern Europe, particularly climate-friendly, job-boosting energy efficiency.
September 3, 2010 | Read more
Friends of the Earth CEPA (Slovakia) and CEE Bankwatch Network applaud today’s cancellation [1] of the 9 billion euros public-private partnership (PPP) for the first phase of the D1 motorway in Slovakia and urged the new government to change the project’s routing to avoid damaging the Mala Fatra and Velka Fatra National Parks.
August 23, 2010 | Read more
In spite of heavy policing, several thousand people yesterday rallied at a concert in Pushkin Square to voice opposition to the destruction of the Khimki Forest to make way for the EUR 1.5 billion first section of the Moscow – St. Petersburg motorway, a project that may receive financial blessings from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the European Investment Bank.
August 4, 2010 | Read more
Yevgenia Chirikova, the leader of the Movement to Defend Khimki Forest, has today been forcibly detained by police in Moscow immediately after a press conference on the persecution of activists opposing the construction of a motorway through the Khimki Forest just outside Moscow. [1] At the time of writing she has been released after several hours of interrogation, but urged to come to Khimki’s police station tomorrow for another round of questioning.
August 4, 2010 | Read more
After more than three months delay, the Complaints Office of the European Investment Bank recently released its concluding investigations (pdf) into the banks involvement in the resettlement of 175 predominately Roma families from underneath the Gazela bridge in Belgrade.
July 7, 2010 | Read more
Environmental organisations have today criticised Commissioner Janez Potocnik for heeding mining industry lobbyists over a democratically elected European Parliament, in failing to open public discussions and rejecting a resolution to ban the use of cyanide in mining processes throughout the European Union.
June 29, 2010 | Read more
After six months of preparations and more than 50 interviews with decision makers and experts, Bankwatch has met with representatives from the European Commission, the European Parliament, the European Investment Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development to discuss how the next EU budget for the 2014-2020 period can effectively support a low-carbon economy with benefits for people and nature.
March 11, 2010 | Read more
Although the world’s largest steel company, ArcelorMittal continues to receive support by international public finance. Neither does its chequered social and environmental record seem to change the public bank’s proclivity for this specific borrower.
March 3, 2010 | Read more
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.
February 4, 2010 | Read more
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.
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