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The European Investment Bank approved an investment of 3.7 billion euros, out of which, 381 million euros will go for transport, hospitals and schools. European cities and communities will benefit from the new EIB investment in various projects - some of which had already been started and others are just being approved. For example, in Jyvaskyla (Finland), the EIB has approved an investment to build 7 schools and day care centres whereas in Stockholm (Sweden) a commuter train modernisation project is underway. Wroclaw (Poland) has plans to improve energy efficiency, urban transport, education, sports and cultural facilities. Banja Luka, the second largest city in Bosnia and Herzegovina, will receive a new medical complex, including a training centre and a university clinic.
The European Commission has provided fresh funding to continue the work of the European Local Energy Assistance (ELENA) facility, implemented by the European Investment Bank (EIB). Under the new agreement, the initiative will support projects across its sustainable energy (€30 million) and sustainable transport (€5 million) portfolios. This will further stimulate investments in energy efficiency, especially in buildings, heat networks, street lighting and clean urban transport. The EIB will ensure the selection of high-quality projects and will lend its expertise to assist with their successful implementation.
The Urban Innovative Actions (UIA) is an EU initiative incentivising cities to test new solutions to urban challenges. It is funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) with a total budget of €372 million during 2014-2020 and with a maximum contribution of €5 million per project.
The present study constitutes the first external assessment of the UIA while the implementation of the initiative is ongoing. Its findings must thus be seen as preliminary and not capturing a full impact that only an ex-post evaluation will be able to measure, as from 2024 at the earliest.
The assessment study evaluated the effectiveness, efficiency, relevance, coherence and EU added value of the UIA. It identified a range of innovations tested including the use of new techniques, social innovation, service delivery innovations, financial innovations and governance innovations.
The grants and loans provided to EU countries under the bloc’s €750 billion recovery plan will not automatically exclude funding for gas infrastructure or highways, as long as these are part of a coherent national decarbonisation strategy with clear milestones, EU officials have said.
A survey aimed at encouraging private entities to participate in the renewable energy financing mechanism has been launched by the European Commission. Open until 15 February, the seven-point questionnaire aims at providing the Commission with indicative feedback on potential participants to the mechanism, in preparation for the first call for proposals. Adopted in September 2020, the EU renewable energy financing mechanism is now in its implementation phase. At the end of last year the Commission invited EU countries to express their interest in participating in the mechanism as a host or contributor.
European leaders need to recognise that direct investment in cities is the best way to address the immediate needs of our citizens, whilst also responding to the causes of the climate crisis, writes Rafał Trzaskowski, the Mayor of Warsaw. The fate of our European and planetary civilisation, threatened like never before by the climate crisis, depends on the ability of cities to act and transform. The twin challenges of our age, securing a green and just recovery from the COVID crisis and keeping global heating to below the 1.5C goal of the Paris Agreement, will be decided in our urban centres. European leaders need to recognise that direct investment in cities is the best way to address the immediate needs of our citizens, whilst also responding to the causes of the climate crisis, writes Rafał Trzaskowski.
East European nations are thinking more seriously about how to reduce carbon emissions, the EU's top climate official said on Friday
Where were you on the night of 31st January 2020? In future years it might become one of those frozen moments in time. Like, where were you when you heard that Michael Jackson had died?
That late January night I was travelling back from the EU Cities Forum in Porto, a bi-annual gathering of Europe’s urban policy makers. Coming through passport control, about 90 minutes before the BREXIT hour, I was confronted with an ‘Arrivals from the EU’ channel already barricaded with red barriers...
An agreement reached in the early hours of Thursday (16 January) between the federal government and representatives of the four German coal states won't bring the country much closer to reaching its climate goals, analysts said.
Although the North-West Europe area is considered as one of the most dynamic and prosperous areas of the European Union, households from some regions still face severe difficulties in affording their energy bills or suffer from a lack of adequate energy services at home. Generated in many cases by low energy performances in buildings, energy poverty is a common challenge to almost all urban areas of NWE, as 80% of the residential housing stock dates from pre 1990’s.
Investments in energy efficiency are able, in most cases, to support citizens in the reduction of energy bills, lowering their dependence on external suppliers, as well as to decrease the environmental impact from energy consumption.
A draft €100-billion “Just Transition Mechanism” outlined by the European Commission as part of its Green Deal last week will eventually see the light in January, EU officials have said. The amount of “fresh money” under the new fund is however expected to be limited.
“URBACT is considered a valuable, enriching and concrete programme which empowers city stakeholders, changes the way cities work and has a real impact at local level – even in remote areas,” says Céline Ethuin, URBACT Project & Finance Officer, who analysed the URBACT III Action Planning Network closure reports. “It’s also a gateway to other EU funds and programmes.”
To hear about these benefits from the cities themselves, we caught up with Athens (EL), Morne-à-l’Eau (FR), Almelo (NL), and Bologna (IT), all of which completed URBACT networks in 2018.
This booklet is a beginner’s guide to how to become a greener and more sustainable city. It is based on the advice and recommendations of experts in urban planning who are from cities that have actually made the transition to sustainability. It also contains the latest knowledge and expertise from relevant experts in environmental legislation from the European Commission, as well as those involved in managing European funding opportunities for cities, and those who know about EU knowledge sharing networks and research.
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Municipal authorities across the EU are struggling to navigate through the Covid-19 pandemic, with many having to rely upon EU cohesion fund to maintain public services.
Our new study, written by three experts at the European Policies Research Centre Delft, ‘Community Support? Municipalities’ use of EU cohesion funds in response to Covid-19: current experience and lessons for the future’ looks in details how regional authorities and municipalities have had to battle against rising expenditure amidst falling tax revenue, and using cohesion fund to plug the gaps in public services when national governments have been unable to provide regional help and financial assistance.
The authors looked at six specific case studies – Lanarca in Cyprus, Corsica, Rotterdam, Slovenia and the German-Polish cross-border region of Frankfurt an der Oder/Słubice – and asked what questions can be learned from the successes and failures in the organisational and distribution of cohesion funds in the various EU’s crisis support packages,
How efficient and accessible are EU crisis measure like CRII+ and REACT-EU for municipalities? What lessons can be learned for EU policy, what recommendations can be given to Member States, regions and the local level? What are implications more broadly for EU regional cohesion policy?
Ireland will receive more than €1 billion from the EU's Brexit Adjustment Fund, making it the biggest single beneficiary of the €4.24 billion Fund, according to figures released on Wednesday (13 January).
The Beacon is a quarterly newsletter with stories, news and developments on financial instruments in the context of Cohesion Policy. The winter edition, published last week, features among other things a significant study on residential energy efficiency financial instruments in Lithuania, two new videos on the combination of grants and financial instruments, as well as a new podcast episode on how ESIF Financial instruments support the development of the Venture Capital/Private Equity ecosystem in Greece.
The European Commission has provided fresh funding to continue the work of the European Local Energy Assistance (ELENA) facility, implemented by the European Investment Bank (EIB). Under the new agreement, the initiative will support projects across its sustainable energy (€30 million) and sustainable transport (€5 million) portfolios. This will further stimulate investments in energy efficiency, especially in buildings, heat networks, street lighting and clean urban transport. The EIB will ensure the selection of high-quality projects and will lend its expertise to assist with their successful implementation.
The European Investment Bank (EIB) and Asper Investment Management Ltd. have signed an investment agreement worth €30 million for investments in four district heating projects in the Netherlands. This agreement will enable the EIB to consider additional investments into new district heating projects in the Netherlands up to €70 million.
The EIB financing supports an equity investment vehicle called “Dorothea” that will build a diversified portfolio of projects in various Dutch municipalities. Dorothea was set up by Asper Investment Management, a specialised investment firm, to acquire and build an exclusive portfolio of sustainable district heating projects in the Netherlands. The EIB is joined in Dorothea by four other leading institutional investors and will be a member of Dorothea’s Investor Committee.
The European Commission has published today the rules for a new EU Renewable Energy Financing Mechanism, to apply from the start of 2021. This Mechanism will make it easier for Member States to work together to finance and deploy renewable energy projects – either as a host or as a contributing country. The energy generated will count towards the renewable energy targets of all participating countries and feed into the European Green Deal ambition of reaching carbon neutrality by 2050.
Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borissov has asked European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen for a "plan" to support the country coal phase-out, saying Bulgaria's own capacity was insufficient to achieve the bloc's 2030 climate goals.
Europe does not need new gas infrastructure to safeguard security of supply, according to a new study by industry consultants Artelys, which warns that there is a risk of €29 billion being wasted on 32 mostly “unnecessary” gas projects.
On July 16, 2019 Commission President von der Leyen announced in her political guidelines the creation of a “Just Transition Fund”. This fund has since become an important element of the negotiations on the European Union’s budget and climate policy.
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This briefing sets out four benchmarks for designing the governance structure of the fund to make sure the EU moves faster towards climate neutrality.
The European Union's partnership with six countries on its eastern border, including Ukraine, should receive significantly more money in the next decade, the European Committee of the Regions said on 5 December in a set of recommendations that also called for the EU to work harder to extend the benefits of cooperation beyond national capitals. Among the many other specific proposals are a call for the creation of an academy to train civil servants in local and regional government and more support for local cross-border projects.
An important agreement promising to take Spain forward on the road to sustainable development has been signed in Madrid. It guarantees European Union funding of 26 million euros for the Solar Storm 200 project. The amount given by the European Investment Bank (EIB) will go towards the building of new photovoltaic power plants in Andalusia, the Valencia Region, Murcia and Extremadura.
A strong civil society is a fundamental pillar of a strong democracy. However, in many European countries, the civic space is shrinking and civil society organisations are facing critical challenges. Here's a report looking at how the EEA Grants have helped support and strengthen civil society during the 2009–2014 funding period.
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