October 16, 2019 | Read more Ulaanbaatar is growing, fast. The Mongolian capital has added several hundred thousand people in recent years, many of whom are abandoning the countryside and traditional forms of subsistence herding to pursue opportunities in the city. But the rush to the city is placing pressure on infrastructure like housing, transportation and other essential services.
October 15, 2019 | Read more The Ne Davimo Beograd initiative has this week challenged a decision by the Ministry of Mining and Energy to grant feed-in tariffs to Beo Čista Energija d.o.o. for the planned Vinča waste incinerator in Serbia, to be financed by the EBRD, IFC and Austrian development bank OeEB.
October 15, 2019 | Read more Today the European Investment Bank (EIB) decided to again, postpone the long overdue adoption of a new Energy Lending Policy. This delay is mostly due to tensions around the EIB’s proposal to phase out lending to fossil fuels. Several shareholders, including Germany, and the European Commission are pushing back on what would be a precedent in the fight against climate change.
October 11, 2019 | Read more The European Commission recently published an evaluation of EIB development operations under its External Lending Mandate during the period 2014-2018. The Commission’s findings confirm our previous assessments and repeated calls for improvements in the fields of transparency, human rights due diligence and development impacts of EIB projects.
October 7, 2019 | Read more A half trillion euro subsidies scheme and part of the so-called Juncker Plan, the European Fund for Strategic Investment (EFSI) has been portrayed by its promoters, the European Commission and the European Investment Bank as a major success story, albeit with little evidence to back such claims.
October 3, 2019 | Read more Today’s announcement by Estonia to reach climate neutrality by 2050 rings hollow given the country’s plans to increase shale oil production.
October 1, 2019 | Read more On the morning of the 1 October, the Make ICT Fair consortium held a breakfast event at the European Parliament in Brussels attended by around thirty participants. The event was hosted by Austrian MEP Monika Vana of the Greens/EFA and Swedish MEP Abir Al-Sahlani of Renew Europe in the Members Salon of the Parliament.
October 1, 2019 | Read more The EU’s next major investment scheme, succeeding the so-called Juncker Plan, is likely to be central to the ‘European Green Deal’ touted by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. But a report released today by watchdog NGOs Counter Balance and CEE Bankwatch Network finds the Juncker Plan has so far shown weaknesses in its transparency, sustainability, geographical concentration and additionality, and calls for improvements for its post-2020 phase.
September 26, 2019 | Read more In parallel to the UN Climate Summit, Bankwatch sends our experts on Just Transition to Estonia to share with locals the experience from coal mining countries that have started to develop action plans for regions that would need to go through re-development due to coal phase-out.
September 25, 2019 | Read more Disproportionate public subsidies for small hydropower in the Western Balkans have resulted in widespread environmental damage and have benefited wealthy business people close to or part of the region’s governments, with little benefit for electricity generation, finds a new study released today by CEE Bankwatch Network.
Stay informed
Receive our monthly overviews of the latest developments on the ground.
