global europe

The conference filled a gap in the current debate around 'Global Europe', where civil society groups and social movements have been little involved, as compared to the intense activity of European business and industry. The objective was therefore to raise public attention to the GE agenda, involve new stakeholders in the Brussels debate, and discuss alternative political paths for the European Union.

Speakers from both Europe and developing countries with a particular experience or knowledge about the issues participated actively in the conference's debates. Read more and watch photos of the conference here

Photo: Grace Garcia Munoz of Friends of the Earth Costa Rica speaks at the conference

The story of iirsa

new booklet: Latin American people versus mega infrastructure projects and trade negotiations with the European Union. May 2008. Download PDF (23,4 MB).

What is IIRSA?

The IIRSA initiative was created in the year 2000, during a summit of South American
presidents in Brazil. Its official goal is South American regional integration through infrastructure related to transportation, energy and telecommunications. This initiative is coordinated by 12 South American governments with the technical and financial support of the Inter American Development Bank (IDB), the Andean Development Corporation (CAF) and the Del Plata Basin Development Fund (FONPLATA), as well as other development banks, likely including the European Investment Bank (EIB).

 
The IIRSA initiative includes seven processes to harmonize regulatory frameworks among countries in the following sectors:

• Instruments to finance physical regional integration projects

• Energy integration

• Facilitating border crossings

• Information and communication technology

• Operation systems for air transport

• Operation systems for sea transport

• Operation systems for multiple modes of transport

Why is IIRSA a risk for communities and the environment?

1. Because its transport, waterways and agribusiness network projects crossing ecologically fragile areas, will have a negative effect on biodiversity. For example, the impact in the Andes, the Amazon Basin, the Mato Grosso, the Pantanal, and the Paraguay and Paraná rivers, will be significant, and in many cases irreversible.

2. Because these projects are likely to put the products of peasant communities at a great disadvantage. IIRSA roads and waterways aim to facilitate the transport of export products like soy, while doing little to strengthen food security and sustainable livelihoods for local citizens.

3. Because the mega- infrastructure projects have been drawn up with excessive focus on the needs of the private sector compared to the needs of the local economy and nearby communities.

4. Because of the failure to incorporate appropriate environmental, social and cultural considerations in IIRSA’s large infrastructure projects.

5. Because IIRSA projects are now set up to follow previous large infrastructure projects financed by international financial institutions. These projects continue to cause harm to indigenous communities (for example the Camisea gas pipeline) and the environment (Bolivia-Brazil gas pipeline), and can rack up devastating national debts (Yacyreta hydroelectric plant).

6. Because the role played by European transnational corporations in Latin America has already generated conflicts between consumers of public services, putting access to basic services (such as water, electricity, telecommunications) at risk, and promoting the privatization of public services. Giving these companies a greater role, as envisaged by IIRSA, is potentially very harmful.

7. Because IIRSA offers little public access to information about their projects and related policy reforms.

8. Because IIRSA does not have monitoring and evaluation programs in place to demonstrate that poverty will be reduced or that sustainable economies are being promoted.

9. Because IIRSA does not make concrete connections between its projects and the reduction of poverty or improvement of the environment.

10. Finally, and in summary, because IIRSA has a logic that is purely economic instead of a logic that is about sustainable integration and healthy local economies.

Read more about what our groups say (in spanish)...

• in Peru: www.labor.org.pe/proyecto/index.php?idproyecto=6

• in Brasil: www.natbrasil.org.br/instituicoes_financeiras.htm

• in Paraguay: www.sobrevivencia.org.py/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=51&Itemid=68

• in Uruguay: http://www.redes.org.uy/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=172

...check our other resources in english...

• BICECA- monitoring IIRSA in the Andes-Amazon: www.biceca.org

• Rios Vivos Coalition: www.riosvivos.org.br/canal.php?canal=215

• International Rivers: www.internationalrivers.org/en/latin-america/iirsa

...or visit the official IIRSA website

Should governments succeed in eliminating these non-tariff barriers' they would undo a wealth of legislation designed and implemented to protect people and their environment around the world.

EU uses WTO to blackmail developing nations

Full scale of WTO challenge to health and environment revealed (press release 24 May 05).

Environmental laws lined up for removal by new trade talks (press release 18 April 05).

Trade negotiations threat to environment and development: new FoEI briefing on NAMA (pdf, 540kb).

wto deal endangers environment, development
e.u. and u.s. demanded high price for empty concessions

FoEI's Analysis of Notifications of Non-tariff barriers in Non-agricultural Market Access (NAMA) negotiations of the WTO can be viewed at: www.foe.co.uk/resource/media_briefing/ntbsanalysis.pdf (in spanish)
and the Database of Selected Notifications which can be viewed at: www.foei.org/trade/NTBs.xls (use this to search the database)
www.foe.co.uk/resource/evidence/non_tariff_barriers.pdf (use this to print the database)
Environmental laws lined up for removal: Analysis of Notifications of Non Tariff Barriers in Trade Talks
New! website NAMA Watch

Established in 1958 as the funding arm of the then European Economic Community the European Investment Bank was set up to finance physical infrastructure linking the national economies of the member countries, and to provide investment in less-developed regions.

Now the EIB's total lending is more than 40 billion a year and the bank finances projects outside the European Union: in South Africa, Asia, South and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Latin America.

The EIB finances, the environment pays the price !

The EIB's legal status remains unclear. It is bound by EU legislation, but not for its projects in borrowing countries like Chad or Cameroon.

The EIB employs only one environmental expert and the Board meets 10 times a year, approving 30 or more projects in a one day session.

The Bank hardly spends any time monitoring those projects. As the EIB communications department said: 'You can't monitor hundreds of thousands of projects and remain economic. We just don't have the staff. There would cease to be a point to the EIB.'

Friends of the Earth International wants the world to know about the institution. It urges the Bank to become publicly accountable and responsible and to serve people and the environment.

There is an urgent need for fundamental reforms in:

• public access to information;
• environmental guidelines;
• recognition of a development mandate;
• supervision and accountability.

This campaign is coordinated by Friends of the Earth International and the CEE Bankwatch Network and supported by more than 30 NGOs from all over Europe.

find out more

www.bankwatch.org/

news

* October 2005: eib poster contest

A poster exhibition calling for profound changes within the European Investment Bank (EIB) greeted participants at the EIB’s Annual Meeting in Helsinki in October.

Activists from Friends of the Earth Finland and CEE Bankwatch Network, who organized the exhibition of posters designed by Central and Eastern European artists, called for long overdue institutional innovation within the EIB.

* eib's investments outside the european union revealed
Friends of the Earth International, the CEE Bankwatch Network and Campagna per la Riforma della Banca Mondiale have launched a new tool for exposing the activities of the European Investment Bank (EIB), because the EIB, the house bank of the European Union, remains one of the most secretive international financial institutions. The new web-based database describes all projects financed by the EIB in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean from 1994-2004.

read the new publication :  the european investment bank in the south in whose interest?
foei, bankwatch, weed, crbm 2006
read as pdf

Invisible Hands: New film reveals Europe's hidden financial powerhouse

check out our new campaign – EIB: Public Funds for Public Benefits launched at the EIB Annual Meeting June 2nd 2005

fact sheets on the eib
EIB Annual meeting 2nd June 2004

briefing: undermining lives in laos
objections to the sepon project 2 copper mine expansion of oxiana ltd in lao pdr

something smells around here …european investment bank ignores right to know

June 3rd 2003 action at EIB annual meeting : Monkey Business at the EIB- More transparency is essential!