Crédit Agricole announces new coal power policy: Major blow for Croatian coal plant

(FOE France, Paris, 30 September 2015) Today's publication of new criteria for coal-fired power plant financing by French bank Crédit Agricole suggests that the bank will be unable to finance the controversial €800 million Plomin C coal power plant in Croatia, campaign groups beleive. The policy now rules out finance for coal power plants in high-income countries, which includes Croatia. The new policy from Crédit Agricole has been announced less than a month after the publication by a campaign group study which showing incompatibility of the Plomin C project with the bank's own corporate social responsibility standards. Crédit Agricole had responded to the report and publicly defended its advisory role in the project. However today’s policy changes now rule out the bank’s involvement in Plomin C. Civil society organisations are now focused on stepping up pressure on the worst coal finance offenders, including BNP Paribas in France, Deutsche Bank in Germany and Morgan Stanley in the United States, for example calling on customers of major French banks to switch their accounts away from climate damaging banks to banks with no fossil fuels in their portfolios.