Around 150 companies in Serbia, potentially major polluters of water, air, and soil, have not obtained their integrated pollution prevention and control permits by December 31, 2024. It means they are violating the Law on Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control and, more importantly, that no one controls how much they pollute the environment, according to the analysis of the basic premises of the Draft Law on Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control, produced by the Renewables and Environmental Regulatory Institute (RERI).

About 220 operators are required to own an integrated pollution prevention and control (IPPC) permit for their industrial and intensive agricultural facilities, such as power plants, oil refineries, large chemical and metal facilities, as well as farms.

Ones that haven’t fulfilled their legal obligation include large and profitable companies such as power utility Elektroprivreda Srbije (EPS) and Serbia Zijin Copper.

The Law on Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control has been in force since 2004. Its aim was to introduce integrated pollution prevention and control, as well as to transpose the European Union’s Industrial Emissions Directive (IED).

The draft of the new law was recently published

The deadline for obtaining IPPC permits was initially the end of 2020, but it was then postponed to the end of 2024. The basic premises for the new law were published in February. The draft law, recently published as well, is in the public consultation phase.

Programme Director of RERI Mirko Popović stressed that citizens should be aware that there are major polluters and that they are the most profitable and wealthiest companies in Serbia. In his view, they are exempted from the application of the law, to the detriment of the citizens, because they pollute the environment – air, water, soil.

Popović: We want to protect people’s health, property, and rights

Citizens should be aware that when EPS emits 300,000 tons of sulfur dioxide (SO2), it goes into the atmosphere and partially turns into fine particulate matter that pollutes the air and enters the lungs, Popović noted. Some of it becomes acid rain that falls on the soil, making agricultural land less fertile, he added.

“Citizens are obliged to pay taxes, to obey the law, but these polluters aren’t,” Popović pointed out.

According to RERI’s programme director, citizens should know that RERI, an NGO dealing with these problems, doesn’t want to eliminate jobs, close factories, or hinder development.

“We want to protect the health, property, and rights of people,” Popović underscored.

Minić: Pollution reduces economic growth in the long term

When a company has an IPPC permit, it means that it is obliged to implement best available techniques (BAT) while its operations are monitored for comprehensive reduction of air, water, and soil pollution and for compliance with strict emission limit values.

When a company doesn’t have one, the environment is exposed to greater, uncontrolled pollution, since the law doesn’t apply to it.
The legislation stipulates strict emission limit values, defined maximum levels of pollutants, including heavy metals, SO2 and nitrogen oxides (NOx) that a facility is allowed to emit into the air, water, or soil.

Pollution has a negative impact on GDP

According to Slobodan Minić, Senior Economist at Fiscal Council, everything regarding the IPPC law is based on the paradigm that investing in BAT, or technologies that minimize harm to the environment and human health, increases costs and slows growth.

“However, it has been overcome in the world at least a decade ago, because as data on air and environmental pollution became available, more and more research has been conducted on how it affects health. The public in Serbia now knows well what the impact is, between 10,000 and 15,000 premature deaths annually. According to economic literature, pollution also adversely affects GDP,” he stated.

We must think of this not as a cost, but as an investment

He recalled that an OECD study showed that an increase in the average concentration of PM2.5 by one microgram reduces GDP by 0.98%.

“If we want to break out of this vicious circle, we must think of this not as a cost, but as an investment. Not just in the production facility, but in human capital, because it contributes to economic growth, instead of hindering it. Otherwise, in the long term, society and the economy will suffer,” Minić concluded.

Vojvodić: The initial principles do not promise changes in the new law

Public consultations on the draft law, which began on November 27, last until December 15.

Hristina Vojvodić, legal advisor in RERI, pointed out that core problems aren’t addressed.

The basic premises of the draft law should have identified the shortcomings of the existing law, based on the 20 years of its implementation, in her view. It isn’t good that these premises were defined without the participation of the members of the working group for the draft law, she explained.

This is a signal to the public, experts, members of the working group that the problems that have been identified were sidelined, Vojvodić asserted.

Of note, RERI produces reports on the implementation of IPPC law to help reduce pollution originating from industry. The organization also defines recommendations for improving the enforcement of regulations and sanctions for polluters.

According to RERI, the research for the latest analysis went beyond the scope of the basic premises. It decided to expand the report to include the issues in the implementation of the law and offer fact-based solutions.