Publications

This briefing highlights the opportunity to improve key aspects of the Connecting Europe Facility Regulation on transport to ensure better coherence with EU priorities, to move towards a low carbon and resource efficient transport sector, which is economically and environmen…

Effective planning of objectives and achievable targets for regional development requires the integration of all partners and stakeholders into the planning processes, taking into account their specific knowledge of the local context and so guaranteeing the results orientati…

The European Investment Bank (EIB), the EU’s bank and also the biggest public financial institution in the world by lending volume, has launched a public consultation on its energy policy and is seeking views from the public and other stakeholders that should feed into a rev…

Monsanto, the world’s largest seed producer and one of the most well-known promoters of genetically modified crops worldwide, is in line to receive USD 40 million of public financial support from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), the bank disclosed…

It was no surprise when the European Council summit meeting dedicated to deciding the EU’s budget for 2014-2020 broke down in Brussels on the afternoon of November 23 with no deal having been reached. The main surprises were how early on the Friday afternoon the EU’s 27 memb…

There will be MFF 2014-2020 closure, in some shape or form, and presumably at some stage in 2013 – at least, that is, when it comes to the European level negotiating and haggling over the future EU budget. But what comes after? With our long-term EU Funds partners Friends of…

The European Investment Bank (EIB) has come under fire in recent weeks thanks to a loan granted to Ford Europe. The EU’s bank signed off on a EUR 200 million loan to the car giant for the company’s relocation of production to Turkey not long after Ford Europe announced the s…

Last month, residents in the village of Krupets in Ukraine blocked the Kyiv-Chop road that runs straight through the village. Their protest – the road was blocked off for more than 90 minutes – came as a result of horrifying car accidents (including ten fatal car accidents s…

Although public authorities appear increasingly to be turning their backs on public-private partnerships (PPPs) for delivery of services and the provision of infrastructure, the beleaguered investment vehicle continues to be aggressively promoted by the European Commission a…

Sir Suma Chakrabarti became the sixth president of the EBRD this summer. Bankwatch Mail caught up with him recently to ask him his views on the bank’s operations in central and eastern Europe and, now, further afield, as well as on a few of the more acute issues that are cur…

A USD 3.7 billion PPP oil refinery expansion in Cairo is accompanied by contradictory project documents, making a mockery of claims by the public banks involved to be committed to ‘good governance’ or democracy. Despite being presented as merely translations of one document,…

On November 30, the same day as the national government was under fire in the most heated protests Slovenia has seen in years, Slovenia’s ministers of finance and infrastructure added fuel to the flames by signing contracts with Simon Tot, director of the Sostanj lignite pow…