ABSTRACT
The Hungarian Ministry for Environment and Regional Policy, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the European Commission have together agreed to create a revolving Environmental Credit Line (ECL) to co-fund certain projects that generate environmental benefits. The EBRD was established in 1991 to foster the transition towards market-oriented economies in the 26 countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and the former Soviet Union. The decades of central planning in CEE countries and in the former Soviet Union, and the peculiar priorities and methods it embodied, left a legacy of marked environmental degradation that is taking a great deal of time, resources, effort and commitment to overcome. The objective of the ECL is to offer preferential loans to private-sector companies for environmental protection investments to help achieve compliance with the Hungarian environmental regulations and European Union environmental standards, and to further improve the environmental performance of Hungarian companies.
