The Czech Republic's long-standing difficulties in realising major waste incinerator schemes via EU funds investments have taken a turn for the worse in recent weeks as the European Commission has poured cold water on the country's incineration plans, both as they apply to the 2007-2013 EU funding period and to the forthcoming 2014-2020 period now entering the final stages of negotiations.
Georgian public opinion backs the village of Kaishi in the Georgian mountains that defiantly defends its land and tradition against the planned Khudoni dam. The project promoters have now embarked on an all-out promotion campaign including a fake non-governmental organisation.
While drawing concrete consequences from the violence that happened in Ukraine, the European Investment Bank seems to be unmindful of the ongoing human rights abuses and killings in Egypt.
The findings of a visit to the EBRD sponsored Patos Marinza oil field in Albania show how local development and investments in resource extraction often do not go hand in hand. The case provides valuable lessons for the revision of the EBRD’s safeguard policies.
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development praises its own achievements in the agricultural sector. A look at Ukraine, however, reveals how sustainable food provision, local communities and the quality of soil are falling by the wayside with the bank’s focus on big industrial operations.
During the annual meeting between civil society and the EIB's Board of Directors, the European Investment Bank committed to review its outdated tax haven policy this year. The commitment which followed a letter from several NGOs expressing such demand, is the most concrete outcome of the meeting which took place on 3rd February in the bank's headquarters in Luxemburg.
As activists pointed out at a consultation meeting in Tbilisi, Georgia's hydropower sector has plenty of lessons to be learned by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
Before claiming the moral high ground on fighting corruption in Ukraine, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development should first of all brush up its own transparency policy and drop old-fashioned arguments in favour of confidentiality and secret conditionalities in its projects.
The growing antagonism between promoters of the Khudoni hydropower plant project in Georgia and their local opponents from Kaishi is unlikely to ease when the investor and the Georgian Ministry of Energy boycott mediation by Georgia’s Ombudsman.
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