Balkans

The findings of a recent report entitled ‘The unpaid health bill: How coal power plants make us sick’, released by the Health and Environment Alliance (HEAL), detail the health impacts of existing coal in Europe and quantify the associated costs of mortality and chronic respiratory and cardiovascular disease due to coal pollution.

The EBRD’s new country strategy for Kosovo, announced by the bank on May 3 after Bankwatch Mail Issue 56 went to press, has confirmed what NGOs and others had feared in the consultation process for the EBRD’s first strategy in its new country of operation: that financial support for a new major lignite power plant is very much on the EBRD’s radar, despite evidence that Kosovo does not need such a power plant as well as the potential undermining of EU climate goals.

A new report by Greenpeace Croatia, using European Environment Agency methodology, shows that the planned new 500 MW unit at the Plomin coal power plant in Croatia will cause approximately 17 early deaths annually, along with around 3970 lost working days due to illness and EUR 124.8 million in external costs.

Following confirmation at the beginning of March that the European Investment Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development are paying out half a billion euros in loans for a new unit at the Sostanj lignite power plant (TES 6) in Slovenia, 98 organisations sent an open letter to both banks calling on them to never commit to such misguided loans again.

The Boskov Most project involves the construction of a 33 metres-high accumulation dam and hydropower plant. It is mostly located in the territory of the Mavrovo National Park, one of the oldest and most valuable protected areas in the country. The EBRD approved the project in November 2011 and signed the finance contract the same year. The civil society organisation Eko-svest from Macedonia submitted a complaint to the EBRD's Project Complaint Mechanism (PCM). This briefing outlines the problematic communication with the bank during the investigation.

The energy sector in Serbia is reminiscent of the industrial development strategy of the former socialist Yugoslavia, with thousands of megawatts of power plant capacities planned, and much of that production to be wasted, while people remain unable to afford their energy bills. The EBRD is set to fund this scenario with its support for a lignite-based, inefficient economy in Serbia. This briefing outlines arguments against financing the Kolubara B lignite power plant in Serbia.

The briefing outlines arguments against the 600 MW Kosovo e Re project that involved the construction of a new coal plant close to Prishtina. The project has been heavily promoted by the World Bank and by the US, and now also looks set for funding by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. The bank's new draft Country Strategy for Kosovo, which was approved by the EBRD's Board of Directors on 1 May, clearly shows the bank's interest in the project.