Another chip off the EBRD block – Kronospan expansion in Belarus
December 2, 2014
In October this year, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) approved an up to EUR 50 million loan to a Belarusian subsidiary of the Austrian company Kronospan for the expansion of a particleboard facility at Smorgon in the Grodno region of Belarus. Belarus will provide a guaranteed return on investment for both Kronospan and the EBRD. With the country’s rich wood resources, generous state tax incentives, weak legal environment, toothless trade unions, cheap labour and a generally stifled civil society, the EBRD and its client are not likely to run into the same environmental and legal difficulties experienced by Kronospan in other eastern European countries.
Another Polish road construction in Natura 2000 site, another David and Goliath fight to save protected nature
December 2, 2014
Road construction in Poland can be a cause for great controversy, particularly when incomprehensible road designs clash with nature.
