Friends of the Earth Japan

NGOs suspend engagement with OECD Export Credit Group

 

(November 7, 2007) Letter from FERN and others to the ECG  setting out the reasons for the 5 November 2007 NGO walk-out in protest over the OECD Export Credit Group’s unwillingness to engage in substantive exchanges of views on issues that have been raised by NGOs over the years.

European Parliament resolution to end taxpayer support for fossil fuels projects

(FERN, Brussels, 29 Nov. 2007) With a resounding majority (540 MEPs of 785 in favour), the European Parliament today passed a resolution on trade and climate change which calls for “the discontinuation of public support, via export credit agencies and public investment banks, for fossil fuel projects”. The step was widely welcomed by environmental and development NGOs campaigning on export credit agencies (ECAs) and the European Investment Bank (EIB).

Revised OECD export credit standards empty basket for NGOs

(May 31, 2007) A joint ECA-Watch/FERN press release: On 23-24 April 2007, the OECD’s Export Credit Working Group (ECG) appears set to approve revised and weakened environmental and social standards governing projects supported by export credit guarantees or loans of greater than 10 million SDRs (US$15.3 million or 11.2 million).

Article 13 of the virtually final negotiating draft of these standards, known as the ‘Recommendation on Common Approaches on Environment and Officially Supported Export Credits’, allows export credit agencies (ECAs) to opt out of applying any standards at all, provided that they report this to the notoriously secretive and effectively unaccountable OECD working group.