Publications

The European Commission President Juncker’s ‘Investment plan for growth and jobs’ is aiming at mobilising EUR 315 billion of additional investments by 2018. A proposed regulation setting up the framework of the EFSI is currently negotiated in the European Parliament and the Council and its adoption is envisaged for June 2015.

This briefing, prepared by Bankwatch, Counter Balance, Friends of the Earth Europe and WWF Europe stresses that this regulation should give clarity on how the fund will contribute to the achievement of EU long-term objectives, its added-value for the EU and the expected benefits for European citizens: all projects benefiting from the fund should explicitly accelerate the transition of Europe’s economies, infrastructure investments should aim at the decarbonisation, decentralization and decrease of energy and transport systems, R&D focusing on the absolute decoupling of resource use and production.

Pressure is mounting on the European Investment Bank to take swift action that addresses weaknesses in its policy on lending to businesses based in tax havens.

The European Investment Bank, as the EU’s lending arm, needs a lending policy on climate protection which properly reflects the EU’s climate policies and legislation.

One week before the European Investment Bank’s board of directors is expected to approve the bank’s new transparency policy, 13 civil society groups warn the EIB's directors that the draft policy amounts to a weakening of the already dismal transparency standards of the EU’s house bank.

Despite the Russian invasion in Ukraine leading to EU and US sanctions against Moscow and major Russian energy companies, public banks supported by EU countries are gearing up to offer almost a billion dollars in financial support to Russian company Lukoil for gas extraction in Azerbaijan.