Publications

As coal phase-out is well underway in the European Union, and the international community is mobilizing to tackle the climate crisis, new coal plants are still planned and built in Southeast Europe, courtesy of Chinese financial support.

In 2018, pollution control legislation under the Energy Community Treaty finally obliged the Western Balkan countries to start reducing the choking air pollution from their coal power plants. Action was badly needed. In 2016, these 16 plants emitted as much sulphur dioxide a…

This document aims to provide information to Members of the European Parliament about the size, scope and lack of sufficient transparency at the export credit agencies (ECAs). The paper proposes changes to make the ECAs climate- friendly institutions, based on human rights a…

The production of ICT has a huge impact on the environment, climate change, human rights and working conditions along global supply chains in the Global South. This document aims to provide information to Members of the European Parliament about sustainability and human righ…

At a time when public calls for tackling the causes of the climate crisis are growing, Romania’s gas industry has been expanding, courtesy of the Parliament and international financial institutions. This report, by Bankwatch Romania, finds that much of the burgeoning gas dev…

Bankwatch and over 70 other civil society groups have written to President of the European Investment Bank Werner Hoyer, members of the bank’s board of directors as well as the incoming President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, and its Executive Vice Preside…

Smartphones, laptops and other electronic devices have become omnipresent in our society. With an expected annual growth of 9.6 % between 2017 and 2022, Information, Communication and Technology (ICT) is one of the fastest growing industries. While everybody knows ICT brands…

In the last decade, a wave of hydropower construction in the Western Balkans has caused ever-increasing public outcry. Large hydropower projects have long caused public resistance, but the mushrooming of smaller plants of less than 10 megawatts (MW) in remote and often ecolo…

The aim of this study is to describe the process by which local communities participated in the Transformation Action Plan of Coal Region Upper Nitra and to propose concrete steps towards the better integration of the local communities in order to achieve the Action Plan’s g…

NGOs Greenpeace and Bankwatch Romania launched a new report outlining scenarios for the post-coal development of Romania’s best known coal region, Jiu Valley, highlighting job growth and economic development without coal is very much possible in the region.The alternative sc…

Bankwatch has supported Armenian civil society in monitoring the investments of IFIs in Amulsar gold mine project since 2011. Following the 2018 revolution and government change, Bankwatch commissioned two expert studies by independent sociologists and biodiversity specialis…

In the Submission to the High Level Group of Wise Persons on the European financial architecture for development, civil society organisations CEE Bankwatch Network, Concord, Counter Balance and Eurodad welcome the European Council’s initiative to review the EU’s financial ar…