Lawsuits and complaints pile up against planned Bosnia and Herzegovina coal power plants

Sarajevo-based environmental watchdog Ekotim has submitted on Friday (October 14) an official complaint to the Energy Community dispute settlement mechanism (1) due to lax pollution limits for a new Chinese-backed 450 MW unit at the Tuzla coal power plant in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The complaint claims that the Federal Ministry of Environment and Tourism has failed to require the plant to comply with the Industrial Emissions Directive pollution limits for new plants. Instead the Ministry required only older, less stringent standards for SO2 and dust. As a consequence additional investments may be needed once the plant is built.

This complaint is the latest in a series of legal moves by NGOs against planned new coal power plants (2) in the country due to their adverse health and climate impacts.

The environmental permits for new Tuzla 7 and Banovići power plants in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina entity have been targeted by three lawsuits at the Sarajevo Cantonal Court requesting the cancellation of the permits that were issued by the Federal Ministry of Environment and Tourism. In addition, an official complaint against Bosnia and Herzegovina was submitted to the Energy Community Secretariat regarding unclear pollution control limits for the Banovići plant, this July.

In the Republika Srpska entity, a lawsuit against the environmental permit for the recently inaugurated Stanari power plant has been submitted by the Center for Environment for Banja Luka, along with an appeal seeking the cancellation of the environmental permit for the Ugljevik III power plant. The group also filed a complaint to the Energy Community dispute settlement mechanism regarding pollution limits for the Ugljevik III power plant in December 2014.

The latest complaint comes at the time when Bosnia and Herzegovina hosted the Energy Community Ministerial Council meeting (3) in Sarajevo as the culmination of its year-long presidency of the regional energy body. During the meeting, new stricter environmental impact assessment standards were adopted, bringing the Treaty up to date with changes in the EU (4).

“More than ten years since the entry into force of the Energy Community Treaty, the Bosnia and Herzegovina authorities have proven themselves incapable or unwilling of correctly implementing one of the most basic obligations of the Treaty – the environmental impact assessment process. Now the Ministerial Council has adopted stricter legislation and our authorities haven’t even managed to properly implement the current obligations”, commented Rijad Tikveša, President of Ekotim.

"We’ve been warning the authorities for several years that under the Energy Community Treaty, any new power plants coming online after 1 January 2018 have to be in line with the EU Industrial Emissions Directive, but the Bosnia and Herzegovina authorities have failed to include this requirement in new environmental permits”, he added.

“It’s anyway incomprehensible that the Bosnia and Herzegovina authorities are approving new climate- and health-damaging coal power plants at all, when EU climate policies and low electricity prices will almost certainly render them uneconomic. Solar and wind prices are falling rapidly but Bosnia and Herzegovina is failing to take advantage of these plentiful resources”, added Igor Kalaba, Energy and Climate Change Program Coordinator of Center for Environment.

For more information please contact:

Rijad Tikveša
President, Ekotim (Sarajevo)
+387 61 554 302
rijad@ekotim.net

Igor Kalaba
Energy and Climate Change Program Coordinator, Center for Environment (Banja Luka)
+387 51 433 142
igor.kalaba@czzs.org

Pippa Gallop
Research Co-ordinator, CEE Bankwatch Network
+385 99 755 9787
pippa.gallop@bankwatch.org

Notes for editors:

(1) The Energy Community Treaty was signed in 2005 and entered force in 2006. It aims at extending the EU energy market to neighbouring countries by progressively adopting EU energy and environmental legislation. The current Contracting Parties to the Treaty are Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Serbia and Ukraine. Georgia was accepted as a Contracting Party on 14 October 2016. The Dispute Settlement Mechanism is a complaints body administered by the Energy Community Secretariat and aims at ensuring the implementation of the required legislation by the Contracting Parties.

(2) The ongoing lawsuits and official complaints comprise:

• A lawsuit seeking the cancellation of the environmental permit for the planned Tuzla 7 power plant filed to the Sarajevo Cantonal Court by Ekotim on September 29, 2016.
• A lawsuit seeking the cancellation of the environmental permit for the planned 350 MW Banovići power plant near Tuzla was filed to the Sarajevo Cantonal Court by Ekotim on April 15, 2016.
• A lawsuit seeking the cancellation of the environmental permit for the Ramići cooling water reservoir was filed to the Sarajevo Cantonal Court by Ekotim on April 18, 2016.
• A complaint to the Energy Community dispute settlement mechanism regarding pollution limits for the Banovići plant was filed on July 26, 2016.
• A lawsuit seeking the cancellation of the environmental permit for the recently opened 300 MW Stanari power plant near Doboj was filed by Center for Environment on August 18, 2015.
• A court appeal seeking the cancellation of the environmental permit for the Ugljevik III power plant was filed by Center for Environment on November 13, 2015.
• A complaint to the Energy Community dispute settlement mechanism regarding pollution limits for the Ugljevik III power plant was filed by Center for Environment on December 16, 2014.

(3) For the meeting documents see the Energy Community website.

(4) The current version of the Environmental Impact Assessment directive in the Energy Community Treaty is the 1985 version (Council Directive 85/337/EEC amended by Council Directive 97/11/EC and Directive 2003/35/EC). Friday’s decision, which needs to be implemented starting from January 1, 2019, brings the Treaty into line with the 2011 version of the Directive (2011/92/EU amended by 2014/52/EU).