February 3, 2022 | Read more Inflation is all over the news in Czechia these days. The prices of electricity, housing, goods and services are on the rise. One of the reasons behind this is the government’s excessive spending. While some of the budget items have been openly discussed, others are hidden to the public. One example is the COVID Plus state aid programme worth billions of Czech crowns for large export companies.
February 3, 2022 | Read more Brussels – Genuine efforts by Member States to direct spending from the EUR 672 billion Recovery and Resilience Facility towards climate action are being undermined by investments that are likely to harm the environment and climate, finds a new report by CAN Europe and CEE Bankwatch Network.
February 2, 2022 | Read more The European Investment Bank (EIB) – the financial arm of the EU – has approved a set of new environmental and social standards that, despite some last-minute changes, leave the door open to human rights abuses and biodiversity destruction, warn civil society groups.
February 1, 2022 | Read more The EU’s house bank has great development aspirations, but its draft environmental and social policy has dangerous gaps that will come back to haunt it.
January 28, 2022 | Read more German development bank KfW has today confirmed that it is dropping plans to finance the controversial Janjići hydropower plant on the river Bosna in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
January 27, 2022 | Read more At today’s annual press conference of the European Investment Bank, president Werner Hoyer committed his institution to be ‘second to none’ and take steps to correct a poor record of human rights violations and environmental damage caused by the world’s largest international lender.
January 27, 2022 | Read more As the EIB prepares to adopt a new environmental and social policy next week, an NGO complaint to the Bank’s Complaint Mechanism shows why the Bank’s standards for financial intermediaries urgently need to be tightened.
January 21, 2022 | Read more In 2021, the Bulgarian (interim) government announced that it had decided to transform the huge Maritza Iztok 2 coal-fired power plant into a steam-gas plant – (to replace 1.4 GW of coal capacity with a minimum of 1 GW of gas). The government has sought funding from the EU’s Recovery and Resilience Facility, the Modernisation Fund and other unnamed private sources.
January 21, 2022 | Read more Billions of euros earmarked for a green transformation and renewables may instead finance fossil gas and waste incineration. Fears are coming true that without transparent public oversight, the Modernisation Fund would become a pipeline for projects harmful to the climate and environment. The Polish example shows that investments banned from the Cohesion and recovery funds are moved to the Modernisation Fund.
January 20, 2022 | Read more Municipal court decision concluded that the Federation of Bosnia and Hercegovina (FBiH) indirectly discriminated against war returnees in Mostar South by choosing a new route of the Corridor Vc motorway without public consultations.
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