Progress in Lockdown

This is the eighth annual report by Coalition 27, entitled: “Progress in lockdown”. The previous (seventh) edition of the Report was prepared at a time when a state of emergency had been declared in the country due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This edition of the report has been prepared one year later, with no end to the pandemic in sight, but with public life starting to return to normal. The pandemic has marked all aspects of life for the past year, including in the field we are reporting on. The environment has become an issue of widespread interest. On one hand, media outlets across the world have reported that nature is being restored due to decreased traffic and economic activity, i.e., decreased
pollution. On the other hand, in many places, including Serbia, the pandemic has laid bare the fragile state of institutions. Even before the pandemic, many institutions lacked sufficient capacity to function properly, a situation that has only been exacerbated by the pandemic. Over the past year the environment has been pushed even further down the Government’s list of priorities, with public health and the economy their main concerns.

However, public health is fundamentally linked to the environment, and so is economic recovery. The European Union plans to use the post-pandemic economic recovery as a chance to build a new, sustainable economy for the 21st century. Decarbonisation of the economy and environmental protection will be priorities for the European Union in the coming decades. This is one of a multitude of reasons why this and future governments of Serbia should prioritise sustainability. The most important context for any future debate on Chapter 27 is the Green New Deal and the Green Agenda for the Western Balkans, in which the countries of the region, including Serbia, have set ambitious goals for themselves to reform their economies towards sustainability. These reforms encompass areas far wider than Chapter 27, but the concepts of decarbonisation and sustainable development lie at their core. Achieving a green economic recovery is the national goal for the next decade, and we will
continue to follow it closely.

Over the past year, we have witnessed ever-increasing public interest in issues related to the environment and climate change. Protests have continued to demand that better care be taken of nature and natural resources. In spite of this, progress on Chapter 27 has, in many ways, remained in quarantine; that is to say, behind closed doors. Legislative processes, as well as the development of projects with environmental impacts, such as the construction of a tire factory
in Zrenjanin, are still often not transparent, despite extraordinary public interest. The short deadlines for submitting comments, and the almost clandestine publication of the Draft Law on Amendments to the Law on Nature Protection,
are the best recent examples of this practice. A green recovery modelled on the EU’s approach will require not only extensive legislative activity, but also putting to use our society’s full capacity to develop and implement the changes that are coming. For this reason, it is not only proper, but also necessary, that everyone takes part in creating these changes. Citizens have emerged from quarantine – it is time for institutions to do the same.