A Partnership of unequals – Electricity exports from the eastern neighbourhood and western Balkans
June 7, 2012
Cooperation in the energy sector is one of the European Union’s key priorities in its relationships with neighbouring states. Although the promotion of energy efficiency, energy savings and the use of renewable energy sources should be the primary areas of cooperation along with “energy security”, the latter receives the lion’s share of attention and in several cases also a disproportionally large amount of financial support. This can have several negative environmental and social implications as this study shows.
Letter to EBRD requesting evaluation of K2R4 safety modernisation before considering new loan to Ukraine’s nuclear energy sector
June 1, 2012
Due to a number of so far unfulfilled project measures in an EBRD financed safety modernisation project in Ukraine (K2/R4 post start-up safety modernisation programme), Bankwatch has asked the EBRD’s Chief Evaluator for a thorough evaluation before further loans for Ukraine’s nuclear energy company Energoatom are being considered.
Revealed: EBRD climate crimes rising
May 17, 2012
EBRD efforts to clean up its energy lending in central and eastern Europe are being undermined by extensive fossil fuel investments, with astonishing increases in the EBRD’s backing for coal and oil projects in 2011.
Tug of War: Fossil fuels vs. green energy at the EBRD
May 17, 2012
The briefing summarises the findings of the Bankwatch study ‘Tug of War: Fossil fuels vs. green energy at the EBRD’. The study shows that almost half of the 6.7 billion euros lent to energy related projects by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) between 2006-2011 goes to support for fossil fuels. This will prevent the bank’s commendable efforts to increase lending to new renewables and energy efficiency from actually making a difference in the global fight against climate change.
Tug of War: Fossil fuels versus green energy at the EBRD
May 17, 2012
Our study shows that almost half of the 6.7 billion euros lent by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) between 2006-2011 goes to support for fossil fuels. This will prevent the bank’s commendable efforts to increase lending to new renewables and energy efficiency from actually making a difference in the global fight against climate change.
Comments on EBRD Draft Country Strategy for Armenia
May 16, 2012
Cohesion Policy reform: Supporting and improving thematic concentration
May 16, 2012
The Coalition for Sustainable EU Funds supports the principle of thematic concentration in the European Commission’s Cohesion Policy legislative package from October 2011. However, changes brought forward by some Member States risk hampering a critical mass of investments in areas that help deliver on EU agreed targets by 2020, especially the Europe 2020 Strategy targets.
Ombla hydropower project under fire in the European Parliament
May 14, 2012
The 68 MW Ombla underground hydropower project, for which the EBRD approved a EUR 123.2 loan in 22 November 2011, is once again under fire, this time in the European Parliament. Both the project itself and its approval process have attracted widespread criticism from civil society and biodiversity experts as the project location forms part of a future Natura 2000 site. In 2008 the Croatian State Institute for Nature Protection declared the project “unacceptable for nature”.
The medium-sized EIB bazooka – Europe’s people and environment must benefit this time around
May 14, 2012
As it begins to dawn on Europe’s elite that fiscal austerity is not working after all, the European Investment Bank is once again the talk of the EU as decision-makers scramble to stimulate national economies that are hemhorraging jobs and living standards – and hope – across the continent.
Vienna Initiative: regulatory capture and policy confusion continues
May 14, 2012
In February 2009 the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, together with the European Investment Bank and the World Bank Group launched a series of meetings with commercial banks, coordinated with the European Commission and the International Monetary Fund, to shore up a weak link in the financial systems of the European Union. The weak link is in so-called ‘emerging Europe’, the countries of central and eastern Europe that are in the EU, but are outside the European Monetary Union, the Euro-zone. These are mostly ex-Communist countries whose financial systems had remained undeveloped under communism.
