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Cohesion Policy reform: Supporting and improving thematic concentration

Briefing | 16 May, 2012 | Download PDF

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.

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Ombla hydropower project under fire in the European Parliament

Bankwatch Mail | 14 May, 2012 | Download PDF

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”.

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The medium-sized EIB bazooka – Europe’s people and environment must benefit this time around

Bankwatch Mail | 14 May, 2012 | Download PDF

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.

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Vienna Initiative: regulatory capture and policy confusion continues

Bankwatch Mail | 14 May, 2012 | Download PDF

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.

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Corruption cases put EBRD due diligence in the spotlight

Bankwatch Mail | 14 May, 2012 | Download PDF

In recent months bribery and money laundering allegations levelled at a former EBRD banker, as well as revelations that an EBRD staffer, now suspended, is one of the founders of the far-right, racist organisation the English Defence League have not made for great PR for the EBRD.

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