The Pljevlja Municipal Assembly adopted tonight, at a session held under emergency procedure due to alarming air pollution, the Initiative to review the ecological situation in that city, along with a set of conclusions demanding urgent and concrete measures from the competent institutions.
The councilors requested that the Electric Power Company of Montenegro provide complete information on whether the Pljevlja Thermal Power Plant is currently operating under the old or new conditions, along with a report on the supervision during its commissioning. The Assembly also demands that subsidies be provided for electricity bills during the heating season, in full.
Today, the electricity company Elektroprivreda granted the citizens of Pljevlja a 50 percent discount for three months, but not on the entire bill, but only on the active energy item, which makes up about a third of the amount on the bill.
One of the key requests was addressed to the Ministry of Ecology, Sustainable Development and Northern Development, as well as the ECO Fund, which requires that all funds collected from environmental taxes from polluters in the territory of Pljevlja be directed exclusively to the purchase of inverter air conditioners for every active household in the municipality.
The Parliament also requested that the Protection and Rescue Service urgently activate a siren alert system in cases where permitted air pollution levels are exceeded. In this context, the Crisis Staff and the Ministry of Education, Science and Innovation are requested to introduce temporary measures to protect children, including the possibility of switching to online classes in the event of an alert.
The conclusions also stipulate that in situations where pollution limit values exceed 20 percent of the permitted values, the plants that the competent authorities determine to be the cause of such exceedances must be shut down. They also request an urgent review of the responsibilities of all those responsible for the new environmental situation in Pljevlja.
EPCG is required to take all measures to shorten the trial operation period of the Thermal Power Plant and to put the desulfurization and denitrification systems into operation before the contractual deadline, as well as to intensify, continue and complete the district heating project of Pljevlja by the 2026/2027 heating season. The Assembly also requested CEDIS to review the state of the electricity network in the city, so that increased electric heating does not lead to problems in the supply of electricity.
The conclusions were adopted unanimously by the votes of all councilors present.
Independent councilor Saša Ječmenica left the hall before the vote, saying that they should have taken a much more radical stance on the long-standing pollution problem.
Bonus video:
