Serbia to invest €1bn to meet EU’s environmental protection standards

Serbia plans to invest €1bn in the next five-to-seven years to improve its energy facilities and meet the EU’s environmental safety standards, the Mining and Energy Minister Aleksandar Antic said on October 28.

The ultimate goal of Serbia is to make all its energy facilities compliant with EU environmental standards, Antic said as quoted in a statement. The country hopes to become an EU member in 2025. 

Serbia has committed to produce 27% of its domestic power needs from renewable energy sources by 2020.

Serbia is among the top air polluters in Europe due to the outdated units of the Nikola Tesla and Kolubara coal-fired plants, according to a report released by environmental NGO Health and Environment Alliance (HEAL) in February.

The report noted that Serbia and Bosnia & Herzegovina hold most of the places in this ranking where the third largest polluter is Serbia’s Nikola Tesla A, followed by Bosnian Kakanj and Serbian Kostolac A and Nikola Tesla B.