Ukraine Reconstruction Campaigner
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Anna is Bankwatch’s Ukraine Reconstruction Campaigner, working on green reconstruction and environmental safeguards in Ukraine’s recovery. Her work focuses on alternative sources of energy for communities, energy resilience, and the alignment of Ukraine’s energy policy and public investment management system with EU standards. Originally from Kyiv, she holds an MSc in Environmental Sciences and Policy from Central European University and is based in Bratislava.
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EU budget last lap – going for gold, and green
August 8, 2014 | Read more
Mathieu Fichter, Team Leader on ‘Sustainable Growth’ in the European Commission’s Regional and Urban Policy directorate (DG Regio), and Markus Trilling, EU Funds coordinator for Bankwatch and Friends of the Earth Europe, discuss and reflect on the challenges and opportunities that are being thrown up as we enter the final negotiating stages in the programming process for the EU budget 2014-2020.
Bankwatch’s Czech co-ordinator Ondřej Pašek takes time out from EU funds programming documentation digging to describe just one little alarming discovery.
Whether at the global level with the United Nations Framework of Programmes on Sustainable Consumption and Production, the European level with the Environment Action Programme to 2020, or at the national level, a great deal of effort is being made to promote, develop and expand sustainable lifestyles and production. Such efforts should be tailor-made for receiving financial support from the EU funds.
The Czech government’s plan to phase out part of its lignite-fired power plant fleet by 2025 has hit the news recently with total annual power output from this climate-damaging source set to drop from 40 TWh in 2015 to 18 TWh by 2035. However the increased electricity consumption projected in the very same planning scenarios, that over time will eliminate the country’s current high energy export share and shift it instead onto an import dependency path, places an unfortunate question mark over just how serious the Czech Republic is about its transition to becoming an energy efficient, low-carbon economy.
Some Czech projects proposed for EU funding are already sticking out as ‘white elephant’ investments. As the final spending decisions for 2014-2020 shape up, Bankwatch will be keeping a close eye on the likely stampede of similar project concepts all across central and eastern Europe.
