September 7, 2021 | Read more Around 19,000 people are estimated to have died over the past three years as a result of air pollution from Western Balkan coal-fired power plants, according to a report released today by CEE Bankwatch Network and the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air.
August 31, 2021 | Read more Following the European Commission’s assessment, the majority of recovery plans have now been approved by the Council of the EU, paving the way for an unprecedented amount of money to be made available to Member States. However, with both the Commission and Member States rushing to disburse funds as quickly as possible, ensuring sufficient monitoring and control mechanisms are in place will be more important than ever before.
August 16, 2021 | Read more On 27 July, the most polluting coal power plant in Romania was shut down. After more than 50 years in service, the Mintia power plant is closing because it has failed for a long time to comply with the legal emissions limit. The European Commission sent infringement notices to Romania five years in a row for non-compliance with the Industrial Emissions Directive. At the same time, two units at Oltenia Energy Complex, Romania’s largest lignite power producer, will be closed by the end of the year. For Romanian coal power, this is the beginning of the end.
August 9, 2021 | Read more Despite strong criticism from the European Commission, the Romanian authorities are determined to use the EU recovery fund for massive investments in fossil gas and hydrogen.
August 6, 2021 | Read more The European Investment Bank (EIB) is closing today the public consultation as part of the review of its Environmental and Social Sustainability Framework. A large group of civil society organisations (CSOs) sent today written contributions highlighting their disappointment with the EIB proposals, and calling for concrete actions to ensure that the EIB will operate as a responsible lender in the future.
July 29, 2021 | Read more A joint Bankwatch-CAN Europe analysis in 11 countries shows little involvement of local stakeholders in the programming process of EU structural and investment funds. This contradicts EU rules on partnership and multi-level governance and won’t help reach the Green Deal’s objectives.
July 26, 2021 | Read more In the national recovery and resilience plans, energy efficiency and building renovations can play a key role for Member States to achieve the required target of 37 per cent of expenditures related to climate. The potential to modernise buildings is the greatest in central and eastern Europe, where the building stock is particularly inefficient. But an assessment of eight national plans across the region finds uneven progress towards these aims. Christophe Jost of Bankwatch concludes that this is likely to hamper efforts to decarbonise the region’s building stock in line with the Renovation Wave´s ambitious objectives.
July 22, 2021 | Read more This year we are marking five years since Bankwatch engaged in air pollution work in the Balkans. Throughout these years, there was one constant in the work – the environmental dust monitor. It has become the hero of many communities and is known to every organisation in the region that works for cleaner air.
July 7, 2021 | Read more Gergely Jákli, the CEO of EXIM officially confirmed in a letter dated 27 May 2021 to Bankwatch member group MTVSZ (Magyar Természetvédők Szövetsége / Friends of the Earth Hungary) that the agency will no longer support coal-related projects.
July 5, 2021 | Read more In a series of video tutorials, we demonstrate tools civil society organisations and activists from Uzbekistan can use to have a say about projects supported by development banks that may affect their communities and the environment.
