Landmark deal ends 28-year Bulgaria motorway dispute with agreement to protect Kresna Gorge
June 16, 2025
28 years since the Struma motorway project in Bulgaria started, the Save Kresna Gorge coalition, Road Infrastructure Agency and Ministry of Environment and Water have reached a landmark agreement to implement the final section of the motorway outside the Kresna Gorge.
Romanian decision-makers try to misuse REPowerEU funds for illegal hydropower plants
November 30, 2022
This briefing describes how Romania’s Parliament and Government are again pushing to legalise illegal hydropower projects in protected areas using new opportunities for funding under the REPowerEU chapter of the EU recovery fund. It shows how a new dra
Paved with good intentions: text of EU emergency regulation on renewables permitting agreed
November 25, 2022
In their poorly thought-out regulation on renewables permitting, the Commission and Council are abusing EU emergency powers to trash key environmental safeguards and unleash legal chaos.
Solar, wind industry worried about ‘daft’ EU permitting rules
November 18, 2022
New emergency permitting rules tabled by the European Commission just over a week ago would concern only “new” renewable energy projects …
Renewables to needlessly endanger EU protected natural areas: Reaction to today’s European Parliament committee vote on the Renewable Energy Directive
November 14, 2022
The European Parliament ITRE committee, responsible for energy issues, today approved the Commission’s proposal for a revised Renewable Energy Directive, undermining existing environmental legislation to allow damaging projects in the EU’s protected natural areas.
Renewables automatically of ‘overriding public interest’ – a counterproductive attack on EU nature legislation
November 14, 2022
This briefing analyses the Commission’s proposal to declare renewables as automatically being of ‘overriding public interest’ in the revision of the Renewable Energy Directive under the REPowerEU legislative proposal. New rules would seriously undermin
‘Destructive, undemocratic and possibly illegal’ – green groups slate leaked EU renewables emergency measures
November 8, 2022
EU plans for an emergency regulation to accelerate renewable energy deployment are highly destructive for biodiversity, undemocratic and possibly illegal, CEE Bankwatch Network and EuroNatur warned today, after a leaked text of the proposal was published by Context Energie.
EIB moves to curb intermediated hydropower financing
July 29, 2022
The EU’s house bank has recently updated its exclusion list, a document detailing what kind of projects it will not finance. This finally closes a long-standing loophole allowing ill-suited intermediaries to finance hydropower projects.
Riding roughshod over EU environmental and public consultation rules risks boomerang effect for renewables development
July 25, 2022
In an attempt to end reliance on Russian gas, the European Commission is seeking to speed up renewable energy deployment. But its proposals threaten to erode decades of hard-won EU environmental and public consultation achievements.
Eleventh hour for protected Kresna Gorge as Bulgaria presses on with destructive motorway
November 28, 2018
With construction advancing in Bulgaria’s Kresna gorge, discussion happening now at the Bern Convention in Strasbourg having taken on an increased sense of urgency.
