What we do - Bankwatch

From a grassroots to the international level …

We’re the largest network of grassroots, environmental and human rights groups in central and eastern Europe.

We monitor public finance institutions that are responsible for hundreds of billions of investments across the globe. The banks and funds we watch are often obscure but always important entities that function outside public scrutiny.

Together with local communities and other NGOs we work to expose their influence and provide a counterbalance to their unchecked power. 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.

Alternative news

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.

CAMPAIGN AREAS

Beyond fossil fuels

Coal is an outdated industry on its last leg. Public finance can move our economies in a new, socially responsible direction.

Rights, democracy, development

Public money must not become an auxiliary for human rights violations or the marginalisation of affected communities.

Finance and biodiversity

A clash is raging between nature and finance. Our work where finance meets the natural world advocates for adequate protection and restoration projects to ensure a green future for all.

Energy transformation

We work to ensure that EU financial flows address the climate crisis and do no harm to people and nature. We do this by involving the public in the design and spending of EU investments.

Cities for people

City residents should have a say in how this money is spent in their cities. Their voices can help make their cities more resilient in the face of climate challenges.

INSTITUTIONS WE MONITOR

European Bank for Reconstruction and Development

European Investment Bank

Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank

Asian Development Bank

OUR PROJECTS

After recovery towards cohesion

For the first time, the EU climate ambition is backed by an unprecedented financial package. The recovery and cohesion policy funds are planned to be two major components to accelerate the energy transition and reach towards climate neutrality by 2050. Bankwatch makes sure these EU funds support transformative and sustainable investments that advance energy consumption reduction, sustainable renewables and smart grids, ideally owned by communities.

Komarnica hydropower plant, Montenegro

Planned by Montenegro’s state-owned electricity utility EPCG, the need for the Komarnica hydropower plant has never been proven.

EU funds and biodiversity

Nature is in crisis. 81 per cent of habitats in the EU are in ‘poor condition’, and without swift action this will only become worse. We need systemic and wide-reaching action and investments to tackle biodiversity loss and help restore nature before it is too late. The EU has pledged 120 billion of the EU budget to be earmarked for biodiversity by 2026, offering enormous potential to restore and protect nature, providing this is properly invested. We are therefore campaigning to ensure these public funds work for – not against – nature.

LNG rush threatens Baltic energy transition: why new LNG infrastructure is a false solution for energy security in the Baltics

Briefing | 14 March, 2023 | Download PDF

As a result of Russia’s war in Ukraine, the Baltic states and Finland, which had relied on Russia for fossil gas imports, now lack sufficient alternative infrastructure to cover regional demand. The main efforts to diversify gas sources and reduce regi

Asian Development Bank’s Draft Guidance Note on Large Hydropower – Collective Civil Society Response

Letter | 13 March, 2023 | Download PDF

In February 2023, the Asian Development Bank published the Guidance Note on Large Hydropower Plants, a document that is supposed to support staff engaged with borrowers and project proponents prior to – and post – approval of proposed assistance for la

Public financing opportunities for energy communities in Europe

Briefing | 13 March, 2023 | Download PDF

This briefing, developed by REScoop.eu, CEE Bankwatch Network and CAN Europe, is a preview of an upcoming, in-depth analysis of the allocation of dedicated funding for community energy through various public financing programmes in 14 countries.

The second and third pillars of the Just Transition Mechanism

Briefing | 13 March, 2023 | Download PDF

The Just Transition Mechanism will provide funding to countries and regions expected to be particularly negatively affected by the transition away from fossil fuels as part of the European Green Deal. The Just Transition Mechanism consists of three sep

If you’re in a hole, stop digging: a case study on Hungary’s plans to revisit shale gas and on the environmental, social and health impacts of fracking

Briefing | 28 February, 2023 | Download PDF

In 2022, Hungary announced an energy emergency and, to address the crisis, plans to increase domestic fossil gas production. A key part of these plans was to develop an unconventional fossil gas (‘shale gas’) field in Békés county (the Corvinus project