EU

Nuclear financing through the backdoor

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While EU energy officials met on Monday, June 6, to discuss the shape of the Energy Union, we were joined by friends from WeMove.eu, equipped with your signatures and personal comments that you left while signing the petition.

Institution: EBRD, EIB

Theme: Energy & climate

Tags: EU, EU neighbourhood

Bankwatch and Counter Balance statement on the mid-term review of the Investment Plan for Europe

June 1, 2016

Brussels, Prague - European Commission Vice President Jyrki Katainen presented today the mid-term result of the Investment Plan for Europe. The European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI), the financial arm of this investment strategy, was established by the European Commission and the European Investment Bank (EIB) in 2015 with the aim of mobilising private investments to stimulate the European economy.

Institution: EIB

Theme: Energy & climate

Tags: climate action, EFSI, renewables, EU

Slovakia's EU presidency: a chance to improve European biomass regulations

In its EU funds spending plans, Slovakia has shown commendable dedication to making bioenergy more sustainable. Taking over the EU presidency in June, it will have a unique chance to apply its expertise to improve European regulations on biomass.

Tags: biomass climate action EU presidency László Solymos renewables sustainability EU

Institution: EU Funds

Theme: Energy & climate

Success: Romanian government promises to respect property of villagers threatened by coal mine

After months of protests and the people in Runcurel, a small town in Romania that is to be swallowed by a lignite mine, have finally received positive news from the Romanian government. During a meeting with Bankwatch Romania and Greenpeace Romania, the Minister for Energy Vlad Grigorescu confirmed that the government will do more to protect locals and their houses.

Read more background in our photo story

Tags: coal expropriation land rights local communities mining Oltenia Energy Complex resettlement Runcurel Balkans EU

Theme: Energy & climate, Social & economic impacts

European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI)

Tasked with stimulating the European economy, the new investment fund may just become an extention of the European Investment Bank’s normal lending with very limited additional (green) finance.

Institution: EIB, EU Funds

Theme: Energy & climate, Transport, Social & economic impacts

The European Investment Bank and climate action 2013-2015

Briefing | May 23, 2016

The European Investment Bank’s lending for climate action between 2013 and 2015 shows that further structural changes are needed to align the bank’s portfolio with the objectives of the Paris agreement.

Institution: EIB

Theme: Energy & climate

The Paris Agreement is a wake up call for the EU's house bank to realign its investment strategy

May 23, 2016

The European Investment Bank (EIB) must adopt new directives and operating principles to play a meaningful role in realising the EU's goal of a decarbonised and resource efficient economy, say CEE Bankwatch Network and Counter Balance ahead of the bank's annual meeting during the EU finance ministers' Council this Wednesday, May 25.

Institution: EIB

Theme: Energy & climate

Tags: cliamte action, Paris Agreement, EU

No security for Europe from the Southern Gas Corridor

With an ownership structure heavily influenced by Azerbaijan, the European Commission’s flagship energy project may end up being a costly piece of infrastructure that does not increase Europe’s energy security but offers a tool for political leverage to the authoritarian Aliyev regime.

Tags: control Energy Union infrastructure public funding TANAP TAP Trans-Adriatic Pipeline Trans-Anatolian Pipeline Caucasus EU EU neighbourhood

Institution: EBRD, EIB, World Bank Group, ADB

Theme: Energy & climate, Social & economic impacts

Parliament gets tough on control of EU Bank's funds

April 28, 2016

In its annual resolution on the European Investment Bank adopted today in Brussels, Members of the European Parliament have criticised the bank’s support to projects under corruption investigations. They also called on the EIB to go further on fighting climate change, tax evasion and tax dodging.

Counter Balance and CEE Bankwatch Network welcome the positions taken today by the Parliament in this resolution.

Institution: EIB

Tags: European Parliament, Passante di Mestre, project bonds, Sostanj, EU

Fossil fuel subsidies from Europe's carbon market

Briefing | April 27, 2016

The so called Article 10c of the EU ETS Directive allows lower-income Member States from central and eastern Europe to give allowances for free to electricity installations under the condition that they invest at least the equivalent monetary value of the free allowances in the modernisation and diversification of their energy systems. This briefing contains a detailed review of the experience so far and offers recommendations for the post 2020-period.

Theme: Energy & climate