Protecting rivers and communities in southeast Europe

In the last 25 years southeast Europe has suffered from a wave of hydropower projects.

Bulgaria moved fastest to hand out concessions on small rivers and streams in the late 1990s and early 2000s and was then joined by others. Albania has been the most active in this regard, awarding concessions and approvals for at least 714 hydropower plants since 2002.

The negative social and environmental consequences in Bulgaria and Albania unfortunately did not cause other countries in the region to learn from their experiences. All countries have at various points offered generous feed-in tariffs to hydropower project developers, thus incentivising the construction of plants that would otherwise not be worth building. This led to an upsurge in construction from about 2012 onwards, which in turn led to increasing public resistance.

This was successful in stopping many plants, and under pressure from the public, the EU and the Energy Community Secretariat, the countries have gradually changed their renewable energy incentive rules to either phase out feed-in tariffs completely or limit them to the very smallest plants, in line with EU State aid rules.

While a consensus is gradually emerging in the region that small hydropower is too damaging compared to its disappointing energy output, governments are continuing apace with plans for larger hydropower plants, many of which have been planned for decades. 

As the EIB and EBRD have rightly become more cautious about financing hydropower in southeast Europe, due to its increasingly poor economics, environmental and social damage and climate change vulnerability, governments are increasingly looking to companies and banks from further afield, often with low transparency, environmental and social standards. 

For example, the China Eximbank is financing a series of plants on the Bistrica river and the Dabar plant, part of the Upper Horizons complex, both in Republika Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Other major controversial projects such as Buk Bijela in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Komarnica in Montenegro, and Skavica in Albania, remain without financing for now. These plants can still be stopped with enough public outcry and legal challenges. The EU also needs to do more to ensure environmental law is followed in all southeast European countries, both EU Member States and accession countries.