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42 NGOs meet the EBRD President

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NGOs meet the EBRD President

Tomasz Terlecki of CEE Bankwatch chaired the meeting

"Meeting together is a very good tradition. You bring the voice of the people in the region and it is important that their voice is heard,” said Mr Lemierre welcoming NGOs representatives to EBRD headquarters in London for their fourth annual meeting with him.

Representatives of 42 NGOs from the EBRD’s region of operation and shareholder countries shared with Mr Lemierre their views on the Bank’s policies on energy, environment, and public information, the Sakhalin Island energy development, the Bank’s strategy for Russia, and investment issues in Georgia, Ukraine and Uzbekistan.

Energy policy – safety matters

The Bank’s energy policy consultations with civil society have moved in the right direction according to Tomasz Terlecki of CEE Bankwatch. “However, we are concerned that the energy policy is moving towards investing in nuclear power projects.” Mr Lemierre clarified that the Bank’s new energy policy limits investments to safety aspects of nuclear plants.

Promoting greater energy efficiency in its 27 countries of operation is one of the Bank’s top priorities and part of the goals of the new energy policy.

“I am very pleased that policy makers have strongly endorsed the energy efficiency and climate change agenda,” he added.

Under its new Sustainable Energy Initiative, the EBRD proposes almost doubling its ‘green energy’ investments by 2009 to €1.5 billion to improve the region’s energy security. EBRD countries of operations are among the world’s highest emitters of greenhouse gases, after the US and China. If these countries could reach western European levels of energy efficiency, world energy consumption could fall 7.2 per cent.

Sakhalin energy project

While the support of sustainable energy was welcomed, the NGOs were vocal in calling for the EBRD to refuse financing for Sakhalin II.

The EBRD’s process of assessing whether to invest in an oil and gas extraction project offshore of Russia’s Sakhalin island, and a related onshore pipeline, has not been an easy one. The Bank, like NGOs, is concerned about this project’s environmental impact.

An NGO representative said that Shell, the company developing the energy project, “has breached environmental standards on river crossings during construction of pipelines across rivers known to be sensitive areas for spawning salmon.”

A representative from the WWF noted that “for the EBRD to continue to test Shell, it would be the same as to test a loser.” NGOs voiced the concerns that this energy project is causing pollution, erosion and oil spills that threaten the fishery.

Mr Lemierre repeated that the EBRD’s decision would be based entirely on whether the project meets the Bank’s standards. “We maintain dialogue with Shell about the environmental aspects of this project and dialogue with you to add greater public scrutiny. My duty is to respect the Bank’s standards and make decisions in an independent way.”

He added: “You have done a tremendous amount of scientific work and I congratulate you. We have done well together and have kept a high level of public scrutiny on this project, one of the highest that any project has had in that region.”

But, he added, the decision whether to recommend the project to the Board of Directors would be based on the quality of the project and not as a reaction to pressure by either the opponents or the sponsors.

Environment Policy and Public Information Policy

Moving to questions of policy reviews, a participant’s suggestion to add implementation guidelines to the Bank’s environment policy was important, in Mr Lemierre’s view, as “implementation guidelines give flesh to the policy”.

The gender issue, according to Fidanka Bacheva of CEE Bankwatch, needs to be given particular importance in the Bank’s environment policy, and Mr Lemierre noted that with support from UK and Canada, the Bank is making a study to see what happened to gender issues in projects it financed.

An NGO representative suggested the Bank improves presumption of information disclosure in its public information policy and makes decisions of its board public.

“Some countries are comfortable disclosing their decisions, some others are not,” said Mr Lemierre, noting that disclosure must not impede the Bank’s ability to work with the confidentiality requirements of the private sector, because that is how we do business and create jobs.

A snapshot of Georgia, Ukraine, Russia and Uzbekistan

“Let’s do business with Georgia,” the Georgian Prime Minister, Zurab Noghaideli, has said in his presentation during EBRD’s Annual Meeting.

But an NGO representative told Mr Lemierre that the Bank must encourage independent assessment of privatisation and public procurement in Georgia, adding there is little information disclosed to investors in Georgia and this damages the investment climate.

“Georgia deserves attention and support,” said Mr Lemierre. “There is potential for foreign investment in Georgia but we should remember that transparency, rule of law, and the fight against corruption must be the rules of the game.”

In response to questions on the strategy for Ukraine, Mr Lemierre saw Ukraine as a good example of a country moving forward. “We doubled our commitments to Ukraine in one year,” he said.

Representatives of Russian NGOs suggested the Bank review its strategy with Russia and shift support to the private sector rather than the public sector. Indeed, this is already happening.

The picture has not changed much in Uzbekistan with NGOs concerned about human rights violations. “Not a single independent trade union exists in Uzbekistan. NGOs are not allowed to register,” said a representative of an Uzbek NGO.

“Could you just say to the Uzbek government: we will do business with you if you leave NGOs alone? We need to develop civil society in Uzbekistan,” pleaded another. 

In Uzbekistan, the EBRD is currently restricting its investments to private sector activities.

Said Mr Lemierre: “We are sticking to our commitments, we say what we think and we take a pro-active approach in order to help people such as those in Uzbekistan. The mission we have is to create jobs for people while working with private sector. I have a lot of respect for all of you who maintain a clear voice on these issues,” said Mr Lemierre to NGO representatives, inviting them to the next year’s EBRD’s Annual Meeting in Kazan.

Written by EBRD Communications Adviser Marjola Xhunga.

26 May 2006