The EU’s house bank obstructs climate action with continued fossil fuels spending and lacking investment in sustainable energy – new report
September 6, 2018
Prague – A new Bankwatch analysis released today shows that in the years 2013-2017, the European Investment Bank (EIB) has invested EUR 18.4 billion in renewable energy projects in Europe and beyond, but at the same time handed out EUR 11.8 billion in EU public money to fossil fuels projects. The new report details a set of measures – including an unequivocal commitment to end support for fossil fuels – that can be introduced in the course of the upcoming review of the EIB’s energy strategy to ensure the world’s largest public lender facilitates the global effort to tackle the climate crisis, rather than hamper it.
European Investment Bank energy lending 2013-2017
August 31, 2018
Energy doublethink Contradictions at the EU bank in combatting climate change Anna Roggenbuck EIB policy officer Alternative news on the EIB Help us watchdog the world’s biggest public lending institution by signing up for our e-mail updates. Learn mor
Estonia’s dirty secret
July 25, 2018
Estonia is the second largest emitter of CO2 per capita in the European Union and by far the most carbon-intensive economy among the OECD countries. The reason for that is oil shale, sedimentary rock that has been mined in Estonia for electricity generation since the fifties and, since recently, have also been used for liquid diesel fuel production.
A different kind of bucket challenge
July 18, 2018
In May this year, Romania made headlines after being referred to the European Union’s Court of Justice for failing to solve its air pollution problem. This breach is about three major cities – Bucharest, Iași and Brașov. But beyond the big cities, small communities are opposing polluting coal industries with nothing more than a bucket.
The energy sector in Romania
May 18, 2018
Even though Romania traditionally had the third lowest energy import dependency rate in the European Union, due to natural gas and oil reserves and an oversized power generation sector, since 2019 the country has shifted from electricity exporter to ne
Gacko II, Bosnia and Herzegovina
May 15, 2018
The Republika Srpska government plans to build a new 350 MW lignite power plant in Gacko, near the town’s existing plant. After years of stagnation, in August 2022 it was reported that the Czech company Witkowitz was considering investing in the project.
Kamengrad lignite power plant, Bosnia-Herzegovina
May 15, 2018
An idea to build a power plant at the open-cast Kamengrad coal mine near Sanski Most in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina has been around for years, but in November 2017 it took a step forward with the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between Energy China International and the construction supplier Lager d.o.o. for a 2 x 215 MW plant.
The loan that made sense until it didn’t
May 11, 2018
During the annual meetings of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the bank is the subject of a complaint for policy violations via a EUR 200 million loan to Serbia’s state-owned energy utility: money earmarked to prepare the fossil fuels-based company for the realities of adhering to stricter EU legislation will instead enable it to extract and burn even more fossil fuels.
EPS restructuring loan
May 10, 2018
Despite its commitments to increase the share of renewables under the Energy Community and reduce greenhouse gas emissions within the process of EU accession, the Serbian government seems determined to remain locked-in to a carbon intensive energy syst
