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The key to unlocking a more inspiring and politically winnable New Vision for a strong Europe may well be the next European budget.

In Ukraine, big agriculture uses unscrupulous methods to manufacture consensus for expansion and marginalise local communities - often with the support of international donors.

It is fitting that we use today to reflect on the European Investment Bank’s new Strategy on Gender Equality and Women's Economic Empowerment: 8 March is International Women’s Day. Adopted at the beginning of this year, the strategy complements the bank’s existing social policy and reflects the equality principle of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights.

This blog first appeared on Balkan Green Energy News

On 22 February, more than 70 activists and residents from the Chyhyryn region south of Kyiv protested outside the headquarters of Myronivsky Hliboproduct (MHP), the Ukrainian agribusiness conglomerate owned by one of the country’s richest billionaires. The protesters were airing their grievances against MHP’s plans to greatly expand its poultry operations in Chyhyryn, which locals believe will have a devastating effect on the small and medium sized farmers and the tourist potential of the area.

It was ten in the evening on 17 December when my colleague and I arrived in Pljevlja, Montenegro. Although we could feel the smell of burnt coal already while driving there, the minute we set foot out of the car, the air was stifling. “This place reminds me of childhood, it smells like in your grandparents’ house when the chimney was stuffed and all the smoke came inside. Only this is outside", he said, with a scarf pulled over his nose.

Although not an institution that typically receives much fanfare, the export credit agency (ECA) in the Czech Republic has a poor track record worthy of more scrutiny.

Despite an urgent need to rebuild and reshape its highly inefficient and outdated energy sector, Ukraine has recently presented a draft of its new energy strategy that looks more like of the same. While the strategy makes mention of modern renewable energy sources, targets for these are low, and nuclear energy still maintains its leading position in the mix. The country’s 15 Soviet-era reactors are expected to bridge the gap in the so-called energy transition until 2035, meaning that they would need to operate twenty years beyond their designed lifetime, posing a threat to neighbouring countries in Europe and beyond.

Once again people from Pljevlja in northern Montenegro have taken to the streets to protest against the awful pollution that has been plaguing the town for years.

Smoke signals the coming of a polluted winter in Drmno, Serbia. Bankwatch’s independent air quality measurements show for the first time the alarming levels of dust particles near the Kostolac B power plant.