The NGOs' point of view presented to the EIB Board of Directors

Human rights, climate, accountability. These are the main areas needing urgent improvement in the EU's bank activities, flagged NGOs to the EIB Board of Directors last Monday 30th January, on the occasion of the traditional annual meeting with civil society. There, the Counter Balance coalition did not miss the chance to raise the most urgent issues the EIB will have to tackle in 2017, presenting five policy briefings co-signed by other NGOs.

Highlighting that in many EIB client countries human rights are regularly breached, in particular for what concerns freedom of expression and opinion, we call for the bank to implement a comprehensive Human Rights Action Plan, aligning its principles to the ones expressed by the EU strategic framework on human rights and democracy.

While welcoming the bank's declared commitment to support the implementation of the Paris Agreement, we urge the bank to publish the concrete action plans deriving from its 2015 Climate Strategy and align its portfolio to the below 2 degrees target through the phasing-out of fossil fuels projects and the prioritization of energy efficiency ones.

We renewed our call to strengthen the EIB’s Complaints Mechanism Office (CMO), providing concrete recommendations to reinforce its legitimacy, accessibility, predictability, equitability and transparency. Indeed, the CMO is a key tool to ensure the accountability of the EIB towards its various stakeholders and to allow the voices of those affected by EIB’s operations to be heard.

A controversial project from several points of view, we renewed our call to the bank not to finance the mega pipeline. From the EU's relationship with the authoritarian regimes in Turkey and Azerbaijan, to the local impact in the transit countries, the dubious economic viability, the false argument of the energy diversification from Russia and, last but not least, its inconsistency with the Paris Agreement objectives the Southern Gas Corridor looks nothing like the future the EU has promised.

Located in a highly unstable geological environment and threatening the livelihood and culture of the already endangered Svan indigenous population, the dangerous impacts of the Nenskra hydropower plant in Georgia definitely outweigh the planned energy benefits. We call the Bank not to finance the project.