Every year when the heating season starts, and the smog descends on Belgrade, the same question becomes relevant – how to deal with air pollution in Serbian cities? For years, Belgrade has been at the top of the list of the most polluted cities in the world when it comes to air quality, followed by other larger cities, such as Nis, Novi Sad and Valjevo. We assume that more frequent measurements would show that even smaller places in Serbia, and in the Balkans, have a big problem with poor air quality. According to data from the European Environment Agency, 17 thousand people die annually in Serbia as a result of air pollution.
For this reason, we believe that it is useful to recall the legal framework of the Republic of Serbia related to the protection of air quality.
The right of citizens of Serbia to enjoy clean air has a significant legal basis within the Constitution and the Law on Air Protection. These rights of citizens and obligations of the state form part of the broader legislation related to environmental protection and pollution prevention. The harmonization of our law with the regulations of the European Union, as well as the practice of the EU, additionally emphasize the need to protect air quality and can serve as a model for more efficient application of the law in Serbia.
Legal framework for air quality protection in Serbia
The right to clean air is implicitly contained in the Constitution of the Republic of Serbia (Constitution), which in Article 74 guarantees the right to a healthy environment. This right requires the state to ensure satisfactory environmental quality standards, including satisfactory air quality. This constitutional right is further elaborated by the Air Protection Act, which largely regulates the responsibilities and measures that the state, as well as operators, must take in order to prevent, control and reduce air pollution.
The Government, on the proposal of the Ministry, prescribes air quality requirements, which consist of limit values for levels of pollutants in the air, lower and upper limits of air quality assessment, critical levels, limits of tolerance and tolerant values, target values and long-term goals of pollutants in the air, concentrations hazardous to human health and concentrations reported to the public.
The Law on Air Protection in Serbia sets the following key obligations for the state:
- Monitoring and assessment of air quality: The state is obliged to establish a network for measuring air quality, which includes appropriate devices and methodology for continuous monitoring of pollution levels. Based on this data, the competent authorities prepare annual reports on the state of air quality.
- Setting limit values and goals: The state is obliged to prescribe limit values for pollutants in the air, in accordance with European and international standards, in order to prevent harmful effects on health and the environment.
- Air quality plans: In cases where the permitted limit values of pollutants are exceeded, the state is obliged to develop and implement air quality protection plans. These plans should propose measures to reduce pollution, such as limits on emissions from traffic, industry and other sources.
- Issuing permits: Every operator of industrial facilities that emit pollutants into the atmosphere must obtain a permit, which is issued based on an environmental impact assessment. The state is responsible for monitoring and auditing these permits, in order to ensure compliance with prescribed environmental standards.
- Transparency and availability of information: The law obliges competent authorities to provide the public with access to information on air quality and improvement plans. The Environmental Protection Agency, the competent authority of the autonomous province and the competent authority of the local self-government unit are obliged to make data on air quality available to the public and publish them in the media, electronic media, as well as on their websites. Citizens, media and organizations can access this data and use it as a basis for initiating legal proceedings when the state or operators do not fulfill their legal obligations.
Operators using technologies or materials that produce pollutants have an obligation to apply the best available technologies, which includes the use of filters, catalysts and other devices; and they are obliged to inform the competent authorities about all incidents, as well as to regularly report on emissions and measures taken.
In 2020, the Government of the Republic of Serbia adopted the National Plan for the reduction of emissions of the main polluting substances originating from old large combustion plants (NERP) in order to solve the problem of emissions from the largest sources of pollution in the country. For the first time, the Republic of Serbia has prepared the Air Protection Program in the Republic of Serbia for the period from 2022 to 2030 with an action plan, which foresees the scenarios, activities and budget that would be needed to reduce deaths related to air pollution. So far, according to the measurements available, there seems to be not much progress in this area.
In the recently completed and the still ongoing civil lawsuits initiated by non-governmental organizations and citizens against air polluters, the possibility of using the provisions of the Law on Obligations and the Law on Property Relations is noted. These provisions rely on the already mentioned obligations of the state and the operator, as well as on the practice of the European Court of Human Rights, providing a legal basis for acting in such cases.
Citizens’ rights and comparative EU practice
Despite the existence of legal provisions on air quality protection, the individual right of citizens to clean air is not clearly defined in Serbia, as was achieved in the practice of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). The European Union does not contain an explicit right of citizens to clean air in its laws, but through judicial practice, rights have been established that allow citizens to take legal action in case of excessive air pollution.
In the Janecek case (C-237/07), the court ruled that citizens who are directly affected by exceeding the limit values of pollutants have the right to demand from the national authorities the adoption of an action plan to reduce the level of pollution.
In Case C-404/13, the CJEU emphasized that all citizens or legal entities directly affected by a breach of the Air Quality Directive (AAQD) are entitled to ask national authorities to put an end to that breach. In this case, the court emphasized that it is the duty of the national court to, if necessary, order the taking of the necessary measures.
In addition to everything mentioned, it is important to mention that the European Court of Human Rights has been developing a rich practice of protecting the right to a healthy environment for decades through the interpretation of other rights prescribed by the European Convention on Human Rights, and that this practice can also be applied in Serbia, as our Constitution foresees the direct application of ratified international conventions and practices of international courts.
Conclusion
Domestic legislation and the legal practice of the EU show that the citizens of Serbia have the possibility to demand the responsibility of the state in connection with the protection of the right to a healthy environment, which includes clean air. As always, one can comment that Serbia has good regulations, but their application is questionable. In the future, it is necessary to increase investments aimed at improving air quality, provide access to justice for citizens and organizations in cases of violation of operator regulations or non-transparency in air quality reporting, as well as more effective sanctions for violations.
Applying EU legal standards and practices could help Serbia strengthen its legislation and law enforcement, protecting citizens’ health and the environment from harmful air pollution.