Human rights and community support coordinator
Email: ola AT bankwatch.orgTel.: +48 601325242
More from Aleksandra Antonowicz-Cyglicka
The EIB’s safeguard rules must match its global ambitions
February 1, 2022 | Read more
The EU’s house bank has great development aspirations, but its draft environmental and social policy has dangerous gaps that will come back to haunt it.
Kenya energy project exposes the dark side of EU development funds
October 13, 2021 | Read more
A third of the European Investment Bank (EIB) portfolio in 2020 went through financial intermediaries, a channel that has already enabled multiple projects with devastating consequences for nature and communities with virtually zero accountability. The ongoing review of the EIB’s environmental and social standards is a crucial opportunity to ensure transparency and proper scrutiny of all projects supported with European public money.
When courts help cloak export credit agencies’ financial clout
April 19, 2021 | Read more
Operating far from the public eye, export credit agencies offer state backing worth billions of dollars every year that in too many cases have enabled both the fossil fuels industry and human rights abuses around the world. These influential public finance institutions have also been relentless in resisting civil society legal challenges to shine a light on how they use public money.
The European Commission walks a tightrope with the EU Green Deal. Despite the long-term objectives of achieving a circular economy and reducing resource use, it plans to increase raw materials mining to meet the demand for the clean energy, renewables, and other high-tech solutions that are at the forefront of the EU’s green development plans. A planned lithium mine in Serbia, vehemently opposed by local communities, is a poignant example of this tension.
Despite being the biggest class of public finance institutions operating internationally, export credit agencies (ECAs) are rarely subject to any public scrutiny. European ECAs declare the compliance with the non-binding OECD Common Approaches standards, but it’s an insufficient benchmark for evaluating compliance with the EU’s External Action obligations as stated by the relevant EU Regulation.
