Serbia will be more competitive with integrated IPPC permits

The Embassy of Sweden in Serbia, in cooperation with the Ministry of Environmental Protection of Serbia and the Faculty of Technology and Metallurgy, has presented the project Implementation of the Industrial Emissions Directive in Serbia.

This project is a second phase of the Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC) permits program, which Sweden has already supported.

The purpose of the presented directive implies that an integrated permit is issued on the basis of fulfilled standards applicable to the European Union, which practically means issuing licenses for the operation of farms and industries in Serbia and for exporting their products to the EU market.

The Governments of Sweden and Serbia signed in March 2018 an Agreement to support the further implementation of the Industrial Emissions Directive in Serbia. The second phase of the project will last until 2020 and the total value of the first and second stages is 2.3 million euros, reads the statement from the presentation.

Swedish Ambassador to Serbia, H.E. Jan Lundin said that Sweden and the European Union are ready to share with Serbia both the burden and the potential of fulfilling the requirements and implementation of chapter 27.

“This is in European interest and it will open a new page in the development of the Serbian economy. With these investments, the Serbian economy will consume less energy and chemicals, it will develop and be more competitive,” the ambassador said at the presentation.

The second phase of the integrated permitting program includes 227 facilities, of which 93 are farms, and mainly relate to the fulfillment of standards on raw materials and energy efficiency in order to save and protect the environment against pollution. In addition, the aim of this directive is also to raise awareness of the environmental responsibility of the industry by the “Polluter Pays Principle”.

“Industry is the largest environmental pollutant, but also the largest investor in the environment. The benefits of this project are great, as domestic industry and enterprises have to adapt to the standards already in force in the European Union, especially in negotiating process for Chapter 27,” Serbian Environmental Protection Minister Goran Trivan said.

The IPPC directive is crucial for the development of Serbia’s agriculture and economy in the field of environmental protection, because it practically represents the entire framework of measures that the state of Serbia must implement at both national and local level, in order to provide Serbian businesses and farms the possibility to make business with and to export to the EU market.

Over the last four years, Sweden has paid a total of EUR 12 million to Serbia for environmental projects in order to help Serbia to meet as soon and as efficiently as possible the requirements of Article 27 in the Negotiating Chapters for Membership in the European Union. Total support for development assistance in 2018 amounts to almost EUR 10 million.