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Latest waste plans set to keep Sofia bottom of Europe’s waste pile

Bankwatch Mail | 8 October, 2012 | Download PDF

In recent years Sofia municipality has been looking for a modern waste management solution, but all in the wrong direction. At the end of 2011, the Bulgarian capital submitted its latest application for funding to the European Commission. Regrettably, this featured a capital-intensive waste treatment facility and virtually no measures directed at higher levels of the so-called ‘waste hierarchy’ – namely prevention and reuse.


Bankwatch contest

Bankwatch Mail | 8 October, 2012 | Download PDF

Entries have started arriving at Bankwatch Towers with concepts and ideas for sustainable, community-based projects – the kind of projects that we think should be receiving much more support from the EU budget. If you live in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Croatia, Latvia, Hungary, Macedonia or Slovakia, send us your ideas for a chance to realise them with a 3,000 euro prize.


Feeding the fire: EU money blocked for one Czech incinerator, yet more still in the pipeline

Bankwatch Mail | 8 October, 2012 | Download PDF

Back in August, the Czech Republic’s handling of municipal waste attracted criticism from the European Commission, when it was identified as one of several EU member states not doing enough to recycle as well as actually infringing European legislation.


The EU budget needs to be greener, not leaner and meaner

Bankwatch Mail | 8 October, 2012 | Download PDF

It is now widely acknowledged that there is enormous potential to reap environmental, social and economic dividends through improving the energy efficiency of Europe’s 160 million buildings. And yet actual investments in energy efficiency measures remain very small in comparison to this potential. To achieve the EU objective of a 20 percent improvement in energy efficiency by 2020 (from 1990 levels), the European Investment Bank estimates that EUR 85 billion per year is needed, with EUR 60 billion per year required for buildings alone. The forthcoming EU budget for 2014-20, currently being negotiated, has a vital role to play here, for both Europe’s more developed and less developed countries.


Making sure EU funds pave the way to cleaner transport

Bankwatch Mail | 8 October, 2012 | Download PDF

The European Parliament has called for ‘sustainable transport’ to be a top priority for the next round of EU cohesion spending. Does this mean that we’ll be seeing a new generation of genuinely clean transport projects across Europe? Not just yet, argues Nina Renshaw of sustainable transport campaign group T