A discussion with EU Delegation: little progress in environmental sector in Serbia?

On October 18th, ENV.net partner EASD participated to the presentation of Serbia Progress Report 2013 organised by the EU Delegation in Serbia. The presentation, focusing on economic chapters, was followed by a discussion with CSOs representatives.

Environmental chapter had a great attention in the discussion. The main conclusion of this discussion is that there are a lot of challenges for candidate countries in this sector (see EU Enlargement Factsheets – Energy, Climate Change and Environment), and little progresses achieved.

However, the EC conclusion is, in some relevant segments, different from the ENV.net Study conducted in June 2013. ENV.net study

ENV.net Serbia Team prepared a useful tool: ENV.net reading progress report SERBIA.

 

[alert style=”white”] Some background information for SERBIA

 

Candidate – applied in 2009, obtained candidate status in March 2012. The EU-facilitated dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina was launched in March 2011. The First agreement of principles governing normalisation of relations was reached with Kosovo in April 2013. The momentum of reforms has also been reinvigorated in Serbia. The European Council decided in June 2013 to open accession negotiations. The first Intergovernmental Conference on Serbia’s accession negotiations will be held in January 2014 at the very latest, after the Council adopts the negotiating framework, which was proposed by the Commission in July 2013. In the meantime, the ‘screening’ began in September 2013. The Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA) entered into force on 1 September.

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