Chapter 27 in Serbia: No-Progress Report

The report Chapter 27 in Serbia: No-Progress Report is the fifth annual Report of Coalition 27, following the publication of the annual report of the European Commission. Given that there was a change in the dynamics of the European Commission reporting, Coalition 27 published a report in 2017 in a shorter form. The No-Progress Report deals with topics from the period covered by the previous report in more details, with the addition of new developments which took place until late February 2018.

The most significant change in the previous period was the establishment of the Ministry of Environmental Protection. The establishment of the Ministry has finally created the conditions for the environmental protection to stop being second to other sectors. Today, eight months after the establishment of the Ministry, some progress has been seen, but the impression is that concrete results are missing and there is room for improvement.

The second big event is the adoption of the EU Enlargement Strategy for the Western Balkans1. It is indicative that Chapter 27 has not been mentioned in the Strategy at all, while the environment has been briefly mentioned in several places. For this reason, we believe that it is the duty of civil society organisations to make additional efforts in order to position this topic at the list of priorities due to its importance.

The exact date for the opening of Negotiating Chapter 27 is still unknown, and the process of preparing the negotiating position of the Republic of Serbia is taking place with the limited participation of stakeholders (civil society organisations, academic and professional community). According to the announcement of the Minister of Environmental Protection, the negotiating position should be written by the end of June 2018, and the Minister indicated that the opening of Chapter 27 could be possible at that time. The harmonisation with the EU acquis covered by this chapter will enable reaching a significantly higher level of environmental protection and the fight against the consequences of new climate conditions, and it demands a full commitment of the Government.

Coalition 27 was established by civil society organisations in 2014 primarily to monitor and contribute to the negotiations in Chapter 27. The report was prepared by eleven member organisations of Coalition 27: Belgrade Open School, The Bird Study and Protection Society of Serbia, Centre for Ecology and Sustainable Development, Climate Action Network Europe, Environment Engineering Group, Environment Improvement Centre, GM Optimist, One Degree Serbia, Safer Chemicals Alternative, Young Researchers of Serbia and the World Organization for Nature (WWF).

The report covers ten thematic areas: horizontal legislation, air quality, waste management, water quality, nature protection, industrial pollution and risk management, chemicals management, noise and climate change. Given that forestry has a significant impact on a lot of areas in the environment (nature protection, climate change, etc.), we have decided to give an overview of this area in this report. The report does not deal with civil protection issues. In each thematic area, we considered the development of events in policy and legislation, the implementation of regulations, financing, and recommendations are given to improve the process. We have especially highlighted and addressed general trends in financing in the areas of environment and climate change.