Even after the publication of the Report on Montenegro's progress in the process of negotiations with the EU for 2021, which noted the limited progress of Montenegro in Chapter 27 - environmental protection and climate change, there was no significant progress in this chapter.
This was announced by the non-governmental organization Green Home.
As stated in the announcement, Coalition 27, an informal network of non-governmental organizations formed in order to monitor and promote the transposition and implementation of the European legal acquis in the field of environment and climate change, prepared the Shadow Report for chapter 27, which aims to present "overall a picture of Montenegro's progress in the negotiation process with the EU in relation to this chapter."
Green Home says that the report highlights key problems in this area, "and covers the period from April 2021 to December 2021."
"Numerous questions from previous years related to sub-areas are still open Waste management, water quality i nature protection, but we also recognize and state new problems. One of the important operational problems is non-functioning of the Chapter 27 Working Group. This working group was formed in July 2021, after which it had only one - the first constitutive meeting, which was held in October. There were no operational meetings of this working group all year, from which it can be concluded that the fulfillment of the final benchmarks for chapter 27 is not on the list of priorities of this Government, and that there is a complete lack of coordination between the departments that are responsible for the implementation of the measures from the action plan. in the announcement.
They report that in the sub-field of nature protection there is a chaotic situation in national parks, "in which the entire management was replaced twice in a year, with mutual accusations, and all this produces unstable functioning of the managers of the most important protected areas in the country."
They point out that the National Parks do not have valid management plans for more than a year.
"Many other protected areas do not have them either, especially those that have been declared in the last five years, such as the Cijevna river canyon, the Zeta river valley and others," said Green home.
When it comes to the sub-field of waste management, they state that the relevant Ministry has not adopted a new Law on Waste Management, as well as related plans of national and local importance.
"It reports that a public hearing was held for this law, and it was held back in 2018, after which the bill was amended and harmonized several times," the statement said.
In the water supply sub-area, they say that there has been no progress, and that the issue of sewage sludge management is "another burning problem".
"There is also a very bad practice of adopting the Monitoring Plan at the very end of the year, with the complete exclusion of the implementation of monitoring for areas defined by law. Thus, environmental monitoring was reduced to monitoring air and allergenic pollen, while the budget for environmental monitoring was reduced by more than three times," they said in a statement.
The report, as they state, analyzed and repeatedly mentioned the need for urgent measures to preserve the ecological value of protected areas and potential Natura 2000 habitats, such as Ulcinjska Salt Lake, Skadar Lake and the Tara River.
"For Solana Ulcinj, although a decision has been made regarding its ownership, the management issue has not yet been resolved, nor has the Management Plan been adopted. In relation to the issue of pollution of the Tara River that arose as a result of the construction of the highway section, the Ministry of Ecology, Spatial Planning and Urbanism during this year, it completely suspended the monitoring of biodiversity. The case before the secretariat of the Berne Convention regarding Lake Skadar remained open, and representatives of the Ministry did not even take part in the work of the session," said the NGO Green Home.
They conclude that, in addition to the above, there are numerous other problems related to this complex chapter "which are detailed in the available Shadow Report."
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