Chapter 15: Yugoslavia
Serbia
(continued)
Also valuable are several international initiatives of Yugoslavia. The World Environment Day was proclaimed based on a proposal from the Yugoslav delegation. At the meeting of Foreign Affairs Ministers of the southeastern countries of the Europe in Thessolonike, Greece (June 9-10, 1997), the minister agreed to the initiative to establish the Regional Environmental Center for Balkan countries with its head office in Yugoslavia.
Several important publications have been published, including those dealing with the environment and international treaties with the importance for Yugoslavia, the code of environmental laws and regulations (another, more complete one is being prepared), the legal protection of the environment, environmental crime, and two editions of the NGO Directory. In addition, there already exists the YU-eco network.
The international ecological fair and conferences were held even during the international sanctions. However, the international sanctions have decreased public and media interest in environmental issues and increased of existential concerns.
Among Yugoslav NGOs, ecological organizations are the most numerous. NGO representatives even participate in some local assemblies. Public debates, roundtable discussions, lectures, books, reviews, and public protest have appeared as useful forms of NGOs activity and public participation.
In the Kopaonik School of Natural Law, the ecological section has become more important. Nongovernmental legal advocacy and advisory activity is also developing.
Public participation is undeveloped even in local decisionmaking and EIA procedures. NGOs are mostly locally oriented and not enough of them are related or coordinated. In general, public initiative is low.
Finally, primary and secondary efficiency of the legal system, especially in environmental cases, is not yet satisfactory, mainly due to the lack of instruments to implement environmental legislation.
Ideally, the Ministry of Environment and NGOs should cooperate as partners. To achieve this, the relations between them must be redefined and institutionalized. To that end, the ministry could establish a particular body in charge of public relations, and the NGOs could be much more persistent in requesting information and giving initiatives, proposals and alternatives to help influence decisions.
The republic could further encourage public participation by strengthening the legal framework and harmonizing more of the national legislation with the EU legislation, especially with regard to access to information, public participation and access to justice. The government should also harmonize federal and republic legislation in the different areas of the environmental protection. For this reason the Federal Environmental Protection Law should be passed as soon as possible. The laws and regulations on the local and EIA levels also should be altered to allow for more public participation similar to the provisions in other countries. Regulations could also be reworked to reinforce preventive measures and enlarge the competence of the inspectors.
Finally, the situation could be improved by the development of ecological advocacy and legal advisory services. This would not be as important if laws and regulations were published in condensed and popular forms for citizens and NGOs.
