With the aim to involve a wider circle of organizations in the early stages of drafting the National Environmental Protection Strategy, Belgrade Open School, Young Researchers of Serbia and Renewables and Environmental Regulatory Institute on May 15, 2023 organized a second consultative meeting with civil society organizations with expertise in the field of environmental protection.

Through participation in consultative meetings, representatives of organizations have the opportunity to give their comments and contributions in the early stages of drafting the National Environmental Protection Strategy. The problems and objectives of the Strategy were discussed at the first consultation, while the topics of the second meeting were indicators and measures. As announced, the first draft of the Strategy should be available by July of the current year on the eConsultation portal, while the public discussion is planned for the period between October and November.

Consultative meetings involve active work in small groups, in which civil society representatives analyze the working documents of the Strategy and provide comments on objectives, indicators, measures and activities. During the work, participants emphasized that it is extremely important to harmonize all five pillars of the Strategy, that measures and activities need to be concretized, as well as the objectives, indicators, measures and activities must be harmonized. Concrete proposals and formulations will be forwarded to the Ministry of Environmental Protection after this consultative meeting.

The proposed strategic directions of action of the future Strategy coincide with the objectives of the Sofia Declaration and the five pillars on the Green Agenda for the Western Balkans: decarbonization, energy efficiency and reduction of industrial emissions, circular economy for efficient use of resources and industrial symbiosis, reduction of environmental pollution with a focus on air quality, protecting and investing in biodiversity and ecosystems and sustainable food systems and rural development.

So far, three Working Group meetings for the drafting of the National Environmental Protection Strategy with the Action Plan have been held, and another meeting of the Working Group is expected in the coming period, where the definition of measures, financial analysis and analysis of effects will be discussed.

The event was organized with the support of the European Union, the governments of Switzerland and Germany, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH and the British Embassy in Belgrade.