"Citizens have come out of quarantine, the environment has finally become a social issue in Serbia but institutions have remained closed," concluded the presentation of the eighth annual Shadow Report of the Coalition 27, "Chapter 27 in Serbia: Progress in lockdown“.
The report, which monitors the progress of reforms anticipated in Chapter 27 and analyzes the state in ten environmental areas in Serbia, this year emphasizes the lack of participation of citizens, the professional public, and the civil sector in the environmental decision-making processes.
"As expected, the interest of citizens in the protection of the environment has increased but unfortunately, this has not led us to become a priority of the Government of the Republic of Serbia. After eight years of monitoring, we can see the trend of narrowing the space for public participation in environmental decision-making processes. The pandemic has made it even more difficult, by making an excuse that closes the door for citizens who want to decide on their future" said the director of the Young Researchers of Serbia on behalf of Coalition 27, Tanja Petrovic.
Some of the ways in which public participation in decision-making processes is discouraged implies following forms and legal minimums with short deadlines and the organization of public insights and discussions during holidays or in conditions when the presence of citizens is difficult, showed the research "Public at a distance" conducted by Polekol. In the period from March 2020 to March 2021, during quarantine, 99 early public insights, public insights and discussions were conducted in Belgrade alone.
"The city administration used the epidemiological situation in several ways to make decisions with limited involvement of citizens or their total exclusion, although some plans caused great public interest and a wish to participate. Through the research, we noticed that citizens who want to participate in these processes are divided into two lines - constructive, if they have a direct interest in the plans, and non-constructive, who have no direct interest, but are concerned and have questions or objections. This second group is denied the right to participate in public discussions and insights, which we saw during the public debate on the strategic impact assessment for the Linglong project, or when the detailed regulation plan of Makis was on the table, to which there were hundreds of objections" said Zaklina Zivkovic from Polekol
Apart from discouraging public dialogue, the report also points to the problem of the unavailability of accurate and timely data on the state of the environment, as a precondition for quality decisions. This problem is particularly evident in the relationship between institutions and the media.
"It has become almost impossible to get a single inspection report from the Ministry of Environmental Protection. The Environmental Protection Agency is also extremely inaccessible, especially when it comes to air pollution, although it has a legal obligation to monitor and inform the public about it. The Ministry of Environmental Protection responds to our requests for access to information of public importance within 40 days, which is the legal deadline, but not agile enough for an appropriate response to the problem. For example, we received data on the state of the air in Smederevo, after several complaints to the Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection, and we are talking about a city where the air is polluted almost every single day" says Dina Djordjevic from the Center for Investigative Journalism in Serbia.
The lack of data is what forced the citizens of Valjevo to get the data themselves, through the work of the organization "Local Response", which deals with air quality monitoring in that city.
"We have had a problem with the air pollution in Valjevo for more than two decades, and every year, according to the data of the World Health Organization, more than 250 people die prematurely due to air pollution. We have detected that the government does undertake any measures, does not even inform the citizens, does not implement the Air Quality Plan and misuses environmental protection funds. That is why we decided to share information about the state of the air on our own and went a step further and made weekly reports and tried to spread that information as much as possible - the local media became our important comrades-in-arms. Numerous initiatives, appeals, actions, weekly reports published by local media, all come across a wall of local government silence. The air in Valjevo is life-threatening, but there is no one to hear it" warned Slavica Pantic from the Local Response.
Where available, data are often illogical and contradictory, raising the question of what environmental policies and action plans are based on. Such problems have been identified in the areas of waste management, chemicals, air quality, water, forestry and nature protection.
"We have an example of data on the amount of waste produced in Serbia on an annual level - the number of the Environmental Protection Agency is even six times smaller than the number of the Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia In the field of chemical management, the number of unsafe products on the Serbian market, discovered during the monitoring of the Institute and the Institute of Public Health, does not match the number of publicly available announcements about unsafe products in the NEPRO database" pointed out Tanja Petrovic.
In its latest progress report on Serbia, the European Commission assessed progress in the field of environmental protection as limited.
"The lack of communication between decision-makers and citizens contributes to that limited progress, which this report emphasizes. In the forthcoming period, we are facing important regional processes such as the Green Agenda for the Green Balkans, which can be a significant meeting place and change in this field, to which the Government of the Republic of Serbia has committed itself, "said the Program Manager for Environment and Climate Change, EU Delegation to Serbia, Antoine Avignon.
However, the speakers agreed that it is important to insist on dialogue and citizen participation in decision-making processes, as well as that the efforts of the media, civil society and citizens themselves are key to developing better dialogue in society.
"As a country that supports the global fight against environmental challenges, we support civil society as partners, but also a sector that is closely monitoring the process of implementing the reforms envisaged by European legislation. We do this because we believe that reforms must be inclusive and involve different levels of society, such as citizens, the civil and private sectors. Participation and dialogue are the central point of democracy, and that is what we want to strengthen and encourage" said Swedish Ambassador to Serbia, Anika Ben David.
The importance of the Shadow Report was also emphasized by the long - standing partners of the Coalition 27.
"The report of Coalition 27 is a key document that was read in Brussels and the institutions of the European Union and a kind of "scripture" that should be followed during the implementation of environmental reforms in Serbia. We are proud to have been partners for eight years and we are pleased that the Report is progressing from year to year, the recommendations are more precise and the monitoring of reforms is clearer. This document means a lot to us", said the director of the Heinrich Bell Foundation in Belgrade, Simon Ilse.
The complete Report of the Coalition 27 „Progress in lockdown“ can be found at THIS LINK.
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