October 4, 2011 | Read more Belgrade -16 current and former members of the management of Serbian state-owned energy company Elektroprivreda Srbija (EPS) were arrested today and yesterday across the country over allegations of embezzlement of company funds. Some of these are people that the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has entrusted this summer with managing an 80 million Euros loan for the development of the Kolubara lignite fields near Belgrade.
October 3, 2011 | Read more The European Union’s internal and external ambitions for green economies are being countered by the activities of European international financial institutions. EU Commissioner for the Environment Potocnik can see that also in his home country Slovenia.
September 22, 2011 | Read more The European Commission this week published its ideas on how to build a resource efficient economy in Europe. Bankwatch’s resource efficiency expert Marijan Galovic thinks the roadmap’s focus is not wide enough yet.
September 20, 2011 | Read more Brussels – The Resource Efficiency Roadmap published today by the European Commission envisages all kinds of right recommendations for Europe to become a renewable based, resource efficient economy but the actual value of this document depends largely on the EU budget.
September 13, 2011 | Read more Upgrades of hydro power plants in Ukraine are a prime example for greenwashing nuclear expansion with renewable energy. Alena Miskun from Bankwatch member group National Environmental Centre of Ukraine gives details on the thickening plot that European public banks are involved in.
September 9, 2011 | Read more Poland has made a worrying proposal on public private partnerships that could risk the future stability of European economies by turning a blind eye to future public debt. But the EU would do well to take the British example as an eye opener.
September 7, 2011 | Read more The EU external energy policy Communication published today by the European Commission continues the decade-long approach of the EU to ensure the unhindered flow of fossil fuel energy supplies to Europe without a real recognition of the problems this drive creates both inside and outside of the EU.
September 6, 2011 | Read more Brussels – CEE Bankwatch Network publishes today a study showing that central and eastern European governments have been using EU funds overwhelmingly for road over rail development, ignoring EU calls for decarbonisation of the transport sector. The Commission can make sure that this pattern is not replicated with the next EU Budget (2013-2020) by introducing strict conditionalities in the new Cohesion Policy regulation next month.
August 30, 2011 | Read more The Bankwatch EIB team read the most recent report by the European Investment Bank on the bank’s crisis lending to small and medium enterprises and they were surprised by its main claims: unlike what the EIB says, our own research shows that EIB crisis loans to SMEs were more helpful to commercial banks disbursing them than to the cash-strapped small and medium enterprises they were supposed to help.
August 15, 2011 | Read more Bankwatch’s waste expert, analyses the draft EU Resource Efficiency Roadmap released by the Commission this month. A good start, but much more is needed, says Galovic.
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