* Admissibility date reflects the date the case was officially registered. All other dates pertain to the date in which a stage was completed.
Case Description
Complaint
On 5 July 2012, the National Ecological Center of Ukraine, lodged a complaint to the EIB Complaints Mechanism (EIB-CM) concerning the Rivne-Kyiv High Voltage Transmission Line Project. The EIB approved a EUR 150 million loan to finance the project in July 2007, and the Finance Contract was signed with the Ukraine Government in October 2008. The complaint includes two main allegations: (i) the failure of the EIB to comply with its own Project Cycle for projects located outside the EU, and (ii) the failure of the EIB to provide reliable and updated access to environmental information. Regarding (i), the complainant alleges that the EIB approved and signed the project without completing the ESIAs for all the components of the project and, therefore, did not respect the 30-day rule for publication of environmental information before the Board decision as outlined in the EIB’s Project Cycle. Regarding (ii), the complaint follows prior communications between the complainant and the EIB, where the complainant requested information on environmental documents of the project. The complainant had also lodged a formal complaint against the EBRD, the only co-financier of the project, in January 2012.
EIB-CM Action
The EIB-CM contacted the EIB services concerned to find out details about the project and previous communications with the complainant. The EIB-CM also carried out a desk review of the key documents related to the project and to the complaint.
Conclusion and Recommendations
The EIB-CM has concluded that there was no maladministration of the EIB in respect of the allegations of the complainant. However, the EIB-CM has also identified areas for improvement, namely regarding publication of project related information on the EIB’s website.