Publications on EU funds

At the present stage, the Partnership Agreements and the Operational Programmes for the next Cohesion Policy period (2014-2020) are not proving to be sufficient for effectively catalysing the EU's transition towards resource efficient, renewable energy based economies. In this letter to the Director Generals for Regional Policy, Environment and Climate Change, European environmental NGOs raise their worries over the Programming of EU Funds in EU Member States. The main concern is that environmental priorities are not being properly addressed.

Based on analysis of Partnership Agreements and experiences of 'partnership' in current programming, participants are regrettably forming the view that Member States’ current planning of Regional Development funding for the period 2014 -2020 fails to acknowledge that Europe’s current ecological footprint lays way beyond the planet’s carrying capacity and, as a consequence, that economic and regional development – fostered by the EU funds – has to transform production and consumption patterns to a sustainable level that does not over-exploit natural resources.

Coal may still very much be king in the minds of the Polish government but, on the evidence of a ground-breaking campaign over the last year in Krakow, the seeds have been sown for a citizens' revolution that could redraw the Polish energy sector and improve health and quality of life for towns and cities all across the country. Alongside effective campaigning, EU money is playing a role in these developments, and has the potential to do a lot more.

A list of 35 regional priority energy projects selected on 24 October in Belgrade by the Energy Community's Ministerial Council has been greeted with dismay by civil society groups from across the western Balkans.