Collateral damage: Ending the ECB’s support to fossil fuel companies

The document criticizes the European Central Bank (ECB) for allowing assets from fossil fuel developers to serve as collateral for bank liquidity, arguing that current 'greening' efforts are insufficient. It highlights that 32 fossil fuel developers and two coal companies without exit dates were eligible for collateral between July 2023 and January 2024. The author contends that companies can circumvent emission limits via financial subsidiaries and that haircuts for companies like TotalEnergies and Shell are too low, failing to reflect environmental and financial risks.

• Between July and September 2023, and November 2023 and January 2024, the Eurosystem permitted assets from 32 fossil fuel developers and two coal companies lacking a coal exit date to be eligible for collateral.
• Fossil fuel companies can bypass the ECB's planned limits on high-emitting assets by using financial subsidiaries; for example, all eligible assets from Shell, BP, Repsol, and Glencore were issued by such subsidiaries.
• The ECB does not systematically treat fossil fuel assets as riskier than others, with haircuts for TotalEnergies and Shell—both of which develop new oil and gas fields—dropping as low as 1%.

APA

Martin, L. (2024). Collateral damage: Ending the ECB’s support to fossil fuel companies. Reclaim Finance. https://reclaimfinance.org/site/en/2024/04/04/collateral-damage-ending-the-ecbs-support-to-fossil-fuel-companies/

Chicago

Martin, Léo. Collateral damage: Ending the ECB’s support to fossil fuel companies. Reclaim Finance, 2024. https://reclaimfinance.org/site/en/2024/04/04/collateral-damage-ending-the-ecbs-support-to-fossil-fuel-companies/.

Wikipedia

{{cite press release |last1=Martin |first1=Léo |title=Collateral damage: Ending the ECB’s support to fossil fuel companies |publisher=Reclaim Finance |date=3 April 2024 |url=https://reclaimfinance.org/site/en/2024/04/04/collateral-damage-ending-the-ecbs-support-to-fossil-fuel-companies/ |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@misc{martin2024collateral, author = {Martin, Léo}, title = {{Collateral damage: Ending the ECB’s support to fossil fuel companies}}, publisher = {Reclaim Finance}, year = {2024}, month = apr, url = {https://reclaimfinance.org/site/en/2024/04/04/collateral-damage-ending-the-ecbs-support-to-fossil-fuel-companies/}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }