From a grassroots to the international level …
We investigate the impacts of public finance, work with affected communities and local organisations across the world and help them protect their rights and livelihoods. We make sure their stories are being told in Europe’s power centers.
We regularly meet representatives of the institutions we monitor and we’re in Brussels, too, doing our bit to make Europe a fairer, cleaner and sustainable place.
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We expose the risks of international public finance and bring critical updates from the ground.
We believe that the billions of public money should work for people and the environment.
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LATEST UPDATE
Coal in the Balkans
In contrast to most EU countries, governments across southeast Europe plan new lignite power plants during the next few years. All the projects have serious economic, environmental and legal weaknesses, which would burden electricity consumers and taxpayers for years to come.
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Southern Gas Corridor
This system of mega-pipelines meant to bring gas from Azerbaijan to Europe, is unnecessary for Europe’s declining gas demand. But the billions in public investments will boost Azerbaijan’s dictatorial regime and cause upheaval for transit communities in Turkey, Greece, Albania and Italy.
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Nenskra hydropower plant, Georgia
The Nenskra dam is the most advanced of Georgia’s massive plans for hydropower installations in the Upper Svaneti region. It will deprive the local community, ethnic Svans, of lands and livelihoods, but potential negative impacts have not been properly assessed.
Read morePublications
Comments on the EBRD safeguard policies
Policy comments | 11 April, 2018 | Download PDFRelying on its experience in monitoring EBRD projects in recent years, Bankwatch re-assessed the EBRD Public Information Policy (PIP) and Environmental and Social Policy (ESP). EBRD Public Information Policy (PIP) 2014 General comments Specific comment …
Answer to the European Commission’s reply regarding The Best Laid Plans
Policy comments | 26 March, 2018 | Download PDF1. The EFSI regulation lists seven general objectives (sectors) open to funding: energy transport infrastructure and equipment research, development and innovation small, medium and small mid-cap companies information and telecommunication technology e …
Financing for hydropower in protected areas of southeast Europe: update
Study | 16 March, 2018 | Download PDFMultilateral development banks have supported no fewer than 82 hydropower projects across southeast Europe, including in protected areas. The study finds that the number of hydropower projects in the region that enjoy financial support from multilatera …
Financing energy efficiency in Romania, Hungary and Bulgaria
Briefing | 12 March, 2018 | Download PDFOne of the five closely related and mutually reinforcing dimensions of the Energy Union is represented by energy efficiency, whose importance has also been underlined in the ambitious Paris Agreement. As the Climate and Energy Framework has set an indi …
Comments on the existing EBRD Energy Sector Strategy from 2013
Policy comments | 27 February, 2018 | Download PDFBankwatch reviewed the EBRD’s energy lending during the strategy period and used this lens to look at the text of the bank’s 2013 Energy Strategy: what needs to be continued and strengthened and what needs to be changed. The focus is on priority issues …
A Recipe for Success: Cookbook on Public Participation
Study | 13 February, 2018 | Download PDFExperiences from Visegrad 4 and Eastern Partnership countries
ECAs go to market
Study | 5 February, 2018 | Download PDFBetween 2015 and 2017, Finance & Trade Watch and Bankwatch, together with its national partners researched export credit agencies (ECAs) in seven countries of the European Union (Austria, Czech Republic, Croatia, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovak …
Smoke and mirrors: why the climate promises of the Southern Gas Corridor don’t add up
Study | 30 January, 2018 | Download PDFThe aim of this study is to quantify the fugitive emissions produced along the fossil gas supply chain of the Southern Gas Corridor, focusing on extraction and transmission operations.
Comments on the Nenskra supplementary environmental and social studies
Policy comments | 15 January, 2018 | Download PDFThe revised supplementary studies for the Nenskra project fail to properly perform a cost/benefit analysis. It lacks an assessment of the energy efficiency alternatives , the environmental externalities , the opportunity costs and even an economic inte …
Doomed to coal
Study | 4 January, 2018 | Download PDFThis study, prepared by the Kazakh Center for the New Environmentally Friendly Technologies (CINEST) provides an overview of the state and prospects for the development of coal-mining and energy-generating industries in Kazakhstan, in the context of th …
