Europe’s energy citizens are on the rise – if we let them
November 6, 2017
Small-scale renewable energy sources are being built all over Europe. Examples from the Czech Republic show that their success depends on adjusting them to the local environment and making sources for financing, such as EU funding, more accessible.
Civil society joins forces to push Europe beyond coal
November 2, 2017
To combat the worsening impacts of climate change and air pollution, civil society groups across 28 nations are today launching Europe Beyond Coal, a collective campaign to catalyse and hasten the move away from coal and towards clean renewable energy.
The great gas lock-in – industry lobbying is behind the EU push for new gas infrastructure
October 31, 2017
A new report from Corporate Europe Observatory shows why the fire-power of the gas industry makes it a powerful and effective lobbying force in Brussels and national capitals. Meanwhile, public interest groups have a fraction of the resources and access.
European Commission complicit in EU nature law violations in Bulgaria’s Kresna gorge
October 18, 2017
The government is heading downhill in the Kresna Gorge with an EU funded motorway project. The European Commission watches the tragedy unfold and overlooks persisting procedural and legal flaws.
Bulgaria to carve motorway through nature haven
October 13, 2017
The Bulgarian government has yesterday evening announced it will construct an international motorway partially through EU protected wildlife haven Kresna Gorge, threatening tragedy for one of Europe’s most biodiverse nature sites.
Fossil fuel subsidies by European public banks are underwriting climate change
September 28, 2017
European public banks who have repeatedly voiced their commitment to tackling the climate crisis and ‘greening’ their investment portfolios continue to dole out cash for fossil fuels extraction, distribution and consumption.
Locals in Upper Nitra, Slovakia agree on the future of their region after coal phaseout
September 22, 2017
One of the positive outcomes of the debate about Europe’s Energy Union was an increased attention to the issue of Just Transition*. Even more promising is that the debate is moving from Brussels to the very regions that are facing an imminent coal phaseout. One of those regions is Horna Nitra /Upper Nitra in Slovakia.
Bulgaria’s Struma motorway becomes test case for European Commission’s commitment to EU nature protection law
September 14, 2017
With crude manipulations, the Bulgarian government is trying to push through a contended motorway route that would damage the country’s biodiversity hotspot in breach of EU law and international conventions. It expects that the European Commission will sit, watch and pay for it.
Why the EIB should not finance TANAP
September 12, 2017
This briefing outlines and summarises key issues of concern for civil society organisations in relation to a potential loan by the EIB for the Trans-Anatolian gas Pipeline (TANAP) which is part of the Southern Gas Corridor.
Azerbaijan’s Laundromat scandal raises concerns over the EU’s growing business ties with the authoritarian regime
September 6, 2017
Revelations about the Azerbaijani Laundromat corruption scheme raise serious concerns over the EU’s intensifying relationship with the government in Baku and its readiness to turn a blind eye to the country’s human rights abuses and offer loans of millions of euros to a massive gas infrastructure project that would fill the pockets of the Azerbaijani corrupted elite.
