Blog entry

Sofia’s burned lesson: Why the Western Balkans must ditch waste incineration

Sofia’s experience – an eight-year battle that led to the Bulgarian capital abandoning a major waste-to-energy project in 2023 – serves as a stark warning for other cities in the region, including Tuzla, Kakanj, Sarajevo and Podgorica.

Sofia’s failed incinerator project, halted due to documented health risks, unavoidable carbon dioxide emissions and crippling finances, demonstrates a critical truth: Waste incineration deepens dependence on a carbon-intensive economy, generates toxic residues and diverts crucial funding away from real, circular solutions. Unfortunately, these effects are all too visible across the Western Balkans.

Debt, toxins and missed EU targets

The push for incineration in the Western Balkans comes at a time when the region is moving towards a regulatory cliff edge. The EU’s Energy Efficiency Directive mandates that by 2030 at least 50 per cent of energy in the district heating sector must come from renewable energy or waste-heat sources. Yet today, a staggering 97 per cent of district heating in the region still relies on fossil fuels.

The Energy Community will soon transpose these binding obligations, posing an existential threat to the dozens of district heating utilities in Serbia (59) and Bosnia and Herzegovina (32), among others. By 2028, they will need to radically transform their energy mix – a near-impossible task if they lock themselves into new, long-term incineration projects that rely on co-burning waste – a process that destroys resources and fuels carbon dioxide emissions.

And the financial lock-in is no less severe. Incinerators shackle cities to decades of debt to repay their high capital costs, all while producing toxic ash that requires its own specialised and costly landfill.

Incineration versus recycling

Critically, the incineration pipeline directly undermines the Western Balkans’ legal obligations under the EU accession process. To align with the Waste Framework Directive, countries must achieve a 50 per cent municipal waste recycling rate by 2025. However, the region is already far behind. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, recycling rates in the Western Balkans remain critically low, with Bosnia and Herzegovina at 2.2 per cent, Serbia at 3 per cent and Kosovo at 2.5 per cent; data for Albania, Montenegro and North Macedonia are either missing or outdated. Separately, estimates from the Regional Cooperation Council place Albania at 18.5 per cent, while other Western Balkan economies remain below 5 per cent.

Investing in incineration creates a built-in incentive to burn recyclable materials simply to ‘feed the furnace’, actively working against the need to scale up recycling. It also locks Western Balkan countries into a high-emissions waste management system that makes achieving their 2025 and 2030 recycling targets practically impossible.

Incineration pipeline crisis

Despite these warnings, the Western Balkans are charging ahead with a dangerous pipeline of incineration projects, often in the face of public opposition. One example comes from Bosnia and Herzegovina, where Elektroprivreda BiH announced plans to conduct a co-combustion test using two per cent refuse-derived fuel at the Tuzla and Kakanj thermal power plants, which would have seen 100 tonnes of refuse-derived fuel or solid recovered fuel burnt alongside coal over two days. Following a stormy reaction from citizens and municipal representatives, the test was temporarily postponed, though the utility reportedly intends to try again.

At the regional level, the scale of the planned shift is alarming. According to an analysis by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit, the Western Balkans has almost no significant refused-derived fuel or solid recovered fuel production capacity. Only two mechanical–biological treatment plants currently produce refused-derived fuel or solid recovered fuel – one in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the other in Serbia – each with limited capacity.

By contrast, the region’s cement sector is already demanding exponentially larger quantities of alternative fuels. Bosnia and Herzegovina, for example, has started importing refuse-derived fuel from Italy, Austria, Croatia and Slovenia to meet this growing demand. This mismatch demonstrates that large-scale incineration requires the burning of mixed municipal waste, directly sabotaging circular economy goals.

A circular approach to waste management

The solution is not to burn, but to build. Sofia’s Han Borgov biological waste treatment plant showcases a viable, circular alternative. Instead of an incinerator, the city has invested in decentralised composting and small-scale anaerobic digestion. The plant’s two combined heat and power units (with a total capacity of 855 kilowatt electrical) uses the biogas it produces to generate electricity and heat. The facility also produces 12,000 tonnes of compost every year, distributed free of charge to citizens for gardening and reforestation.

Small-scale biogas systems like this can be environmentally sound provided certain conditions are met: feedstock is collected locally within 5 to 10 kilometres, no crops are grown solely for biogas production, energy is used on-site, and compost and liquid outputs are handled safely. When managed properly, such systems can convert local organic residues into energy and compost without the pollution and long-term costs of large-scale incineration.

Approximately 100 kilometres south of Sofia, the Bulgarian town of Blagoevgrad is applying a similar approach, putting sustainability into action with a nearly 16,000-tonne-per-year anaerobic digestion plant. Once operational, the facility will process separately collected food, garden and wood waste, serving around 100,000 residents across five municipalities. The plant will produce biogas for electricity and heat to power its own operations, and produce roughly 5,100 tonnes of compost annually, turning local biowaste into useful products rather than sending it to landfill. These examples show that small-scale, locally integrated systems can manage organic waste without the pollution and long-term costs of incineration.

Fund the future, not the furnace

Public money in the Western Balkans must be urgently redirected. Instead of funding polluting incinerators, governments, banks and EU institutions should prioritise investments in sustainable renewable energy sources for heating, alongside energy-efficiency technologies. This is the only viable pathway to meet EU directives, protect public health and build a resilient, circular economy.

Albania’s Skavica dam can’t get off the ground – time to finally cancel it!

Two seemingly unrelated pieces of news have appeared regarding Albania this autumn. On 4 November 2025, the European Commission’s Enlargement Package, which shows progress towards EU membership, was published, stating that ‘The environmental risks of the Skavica hydropower plant project to ecosystem and local communities persist’.

A week earlier, an investigation against the deputy premier and infrastructure minister Belinda Balluku by Albania’s Special Structure Against Corruption and Organised Crime (SPAK) became public. The investigation is for violating tender rules, linked to the construction of a road in 2020.

Minister Balluku has also been one of the loudest supporters of the Skavica dam, a highly damaging project that would flood the Dibër valley, impact up to 15,000 hectares of land, displace several thousand people and bring the Balkan lynx to extinction.

Among others, she was at the signing ceremony of the contract between US construction giant Bechtel and the Albanian Power Corporation (KESH) for project documentation and preparatory works after a special law was adopted in the Albanian Parliament in 2021. The law chose Bechtel for the design and construction of the project – without a tender. But even this high-level political support has not been enough to get the project off the ground.

Environmental impact assessment rejected

After the initial contract was signed with Bechtel, the Skavica project looked like it was being fast-tracked. The technical investigation, building access roads for construction and project documentation were done relatively quickly and an environmental impact assessment (EIA) was submitted on 1 March 2023 to the National Environmental Agency (NEA). From January until July 2023, the NEA and KESH engaged in a process to address missing information and documents. However, according to the Albanian government, KESH’s application was rejected:

‘Conclusively, the subject has not completed the necessary documentation within the 15-day deadline, resulting in an automatic rejection of the application by the system. For this reason, the subject needs to restart the procedures from the beginning’, states the government’s report to the Bern Convention.

As of November 2025, KESH has not re-applied for a full EIA process with the environment agency.

Access roads abandoned


July 2022	October 2025

Our visit to the dam site in October 2025 showed that after access roads were built and geological surveys were carried out in early 2022, highlighting serious problems for dam construction, nothing has been done. There were no workers nor security guards, the vegetation was recovering and the access roads were becoming inaccessible due to lack of maintenance.

A local person from Fushë Çidhën, a village of 200 houses, 90 per cent of which could be flooded if the Skavica dam is built said: ‘Bechtel people were in the region 3 years ago, there is almost no talk about the project since then. Back then, and even now, people can’t openly speak up against the project because they are afraid the government might take away their social assistance that is vital for their survival’.

Another person from the Dibër district’s main town, Peshkopi, added: ‘The project seems to be stopped, not a priority. There are no talks about it, not even in the government. Nevertheless, the government might still try to build the dam and the local people should not only be supported to stop it, but also to develop ideas for tourism and agriculture development as a good and sustainable resource for their wellbeing.’

Investment banks not interested in the project

In January 2025, the Albanian government informed the Bern Convention about the potential lenders for the construction of the Skavica hydropower plant, including the World Bank, the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA), UK Export Finance (UKEF), and the Islamic Corporation for the Insurance of Investment and Export Credit (ICIEC). As part of its progress report on the case file, the government reported that KESH had engaged a financial adviser, Ernst & Young, to assess the project’s financial and economic feasibility and to support discussions with potential lenders.

We sent letters to the World Bank, UKEF – which organised a Skavica Supplier Fair in 2022 – and the US Development Finance Corporation (DFC) which was mentioned by the Albanian government as a potential lender in 2021.

The World Bank and DFC’s responses confirmed that the banks are not currently considering the project, while UKEF underlined that the fact it organised a fair associated with the project was ‘in no way a guarantee of UKEF support for the Skavica hydropower plant’.

These responses show that funding is far from secured. Moreover, as resettlement costs are uncertain with most of the houses in the Dibër district without property documents, the real cost of the project is anything but predictable.

It’s the right time to abandon the project and protect the Dibër valley

As we warned in 2022, the Skavica dam is the last thing Albania needs. With construction costs rising to over USD 1.5 billion, its EIA rejected, the Constitutional Court highlighting the lack of public consultations and a lack of support from the EU and international financial institutions, it’s the right moment to cancel the project.

Bechtel’s selection without a tender practically guarantees that the dam would be overpriced, and it can only be a matter of time until the project attracts SPAK’s attention, if it hasn’t already.

Recent studies have shown that the Dibër valley and the Upper Black Drin deserve to become internationally-recognised protected areas. The alluvial forests along the Drin are the largest in Albania. With the forests in the region recovering quickly from previous clearances, Dibër could become the greenest district in Albania. The variety of protected species and the mosaic of natural and seminatural habitats make the area an ideal candidate site for the Emerald and Natura 2000 networks – Europe’s networks of protected areas.

It will only get harder to build new hydropower plants in the future, due to higher construction prices, annual precipitation decrease, Dibër’s unique biodiversity and public resistance. With dozens of guesthouses and tourism development initiatives appearing in recent years, the government should finally end the suspense about the region’s future and choose the path of small-scale sustainable development.

The project benefits from the support of the Donors Initiative For Mediterranean Freshwater Ecosystems.

This document was produced with the financial assistance of the Donors Initiative For Mediterranean Freshwater Ecosystems. The contents of this document are solely the liability of CEE Bankwatch Network and under no circumstances may be considered as a reflection of the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation or Donors Initiative For Mediterranean Freshwater Ecosystems’ position.

With a revised Action Plan, is the Green Agenda for the Western Balkans finally on track?

Since its inception, the Green Agenda has inspired plenty of conferences and panel discussions, but too few results on the ground. So this year’s revision of its regional Action Plan should have been an opportunity for lively debate.

Civil society organisations were ready to contribute. For example, in October 2024 eighteen groups contacted the Regional Cooperation Council (RCC) – to whom the Commission has delegated the management of the Green Agenda – with detailed proposals on improving the Action Plan and the governance of the process.

In early 2025, the RCC informed civil society representatives there would be a two-stage consultation. The pre-draft one was held in April, but the second one on the draft Action Plan was first delayed, then disappeared altogether, as endorsement of the revised Plan was scheduled for the Dubrovnik ministerial meeting in mid-October.

On 13 October, just before the meeting, 52 civil society organisations wrote to the RCC to express their frustration that no consultation had been held on the draft.

Some clear improvements in the plan

Despite the flawed process, the Revised Green Agenda Action Plan 2025-2030 at least represents a clear improvement compared to the first one.

The first and most visible aspect is the format, which closely corresponds to the one proposed by civil society groups last year. It breaks down the actions into smaller pieces and provides clearer timelines for implementation, as we recommended. It also includes indicators and stipulates, at least for some actions, how their achievement will be verified.

It still has a lot of actions – 41 – and some of them have multiple parts, but at least there are fewer than before, when it had 58. Some new actions have been added, but several less useful and difficult to measure actions have been deleted.

Overall, out of around 63 recommendations we submitted in October 2024 regarding specific actions, around 15 of the updated and new actions to some extent encompass what we proposed. In addition, most of the deletions – 13 – correspond to our suggestions, and some actions do not correspond to our proposals but make sense and are welcome.

Among others, a new action on preparing Just Transition Plans for coal regions in transition has been included, closely corresponding to our proposal, as well as one on mapping existing and potential funding sources for just transition and setting up a regional dialogue on the topic.

A new waste target has also been set: by 2030, the Western Balkans Six will achieve at least 40 per cent municipal waste recycling. This is modest compared to EU requirements, but if implemented would represent a substantial improvement for the region.

But no consensus on deadlines

Many of the remaining issues relate to deadlines, where our opinion on priorities differs significantly from what is in the updated Plan.

For example, the countries will ‘identify vulnerable and marginalised groups with poor access to drinking water by 2028’ and improve access of all citizens to safe drinking water by 2030. It’s good that these issues have been included in the plan, but taking three years to identify – and two more years to fix – a problem as fundamental as access to clean water is too long.

At a time when the EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) is about to kick in, it also seems strange to take until 2030 to ‘set up all relevant institutions and processes to ensure emission data collection under the EU Emissions Trading System in its full scope.’ If the countries want exemptions for their electricity sectors from CBAM, they will need to have fully functioning emissions trading systems by then, not just data collection.

Biodiversity still lacking adequate legal safeguards

Another remaining weakness is the lack of legislative actions in the Protection of Nature and Biodiversity section, which has not been addressed at all. All the Western Balkan countries need to legally protect their nominated candidate Emerald sites, nominate more sites to develop their ecological networks, and improve the protection and management of their existing protected areas. They also need to strengthen their legislation to ensure that appropriate assessments are carried out for plans or projects that may negatively impact their ecological networks.

The inclusion of developing ‘Quantified objectives to expand protected and conserved areas of terrestrial and marine territory’ in the countries’ nature conservation strategies is a step towards what we asked for, but it’s too little, too late. The countries have specific sites that need protection now and in some cases they have all or much of the relevant documentation prepared already. So legal protection should be ongoing, it doesn’t need to wait years for new strategies and targets.

Without a strong legal framework to prevent harm to biodiversity in practice, softer actions like strategies and plans can’t be effective. The inclusion of nature restoration plans in the Green Agenda is an interesting development, but the emphasis should be on preventing harm in the first place by properly applying the Habitats and Birds Directives. And without transposition of the Nature Restoration Law being stipulated as well, it’s debatable whether restoration plans will have an impact.

Governance and implementation still the elephant in the room

All the above issues could have been resolved, had a meaningful public consultation taken place on the draft revised Action Plan. But the bigger problem, which remained untouched by the revision process, is the Green Agenda’s governance.

Ever since the inception of the Green Agenda, it’s been unclear whether governments have committed to implement specific actions. And its overlaps with existing, more structured initiatives like the Energy Community Treaty and Transport Community Treaty make it more difficult to track progress and understand its added value.

The introduction of the Reform and Growth Facility for the Western Balkans in 2024 could have been an opportunity for the Commission to incentivise Green Agenda implementation by ensuring the inclusion of measures from the Action Plan in countries’ Reform Agendas. But – again partly due to a lack of public consultations – a plethora of energy-related reforms were included, but very few environmental ones. Such omissions must not be allowed to recur if the EU employs similar instruments in the region again.

At this point, it seems separate country-level Green Agenda Action Plans will be needed, to show which actions the governments commit to, by when, how much they will cost and who will implement them. And the plans must be publicly consulted.

But for this, the European Commission has to step in and give them a good reason to do so. Without consequences for non-implementation, the Green Agenda risks remaining all talk and no action – an outcome the region cannot afford.

Preferential status for hydrogen infrastructure could cement Europe’s dependence on fossil gas

The European Commission is currently finalising a list of transboundary energy projects that Member States want to see fast-tracked. These projects are called Projects of Common Interest (PCI) and Projects of Mutual Interest (PMI), and energy infrastructure projects that win this lucrative title get benefits such expedited permitting and privileged access to EU subsidies.

The PCI/PMI list could have helped stimulate the energy transition had it not been captured by fossil gas interests and myopic government officials.

A leaked draft of the list has over a hundred hydrogen projects – twice as many as in the previous PCI list – including electrolysers, hydrogen storage facilities, hydrogen reception facilities and pipelines. Lots of pipelines. In fact, more than half of the hydrogen projects that were shortlisted are pipelines. And roughly 75 per cent of these pipelines are intended to pump fossil gas-based hydrogen, according to analysis by Food and Water Action Europe.

If these projects materialise, they will entrench Europe’s reliance on fossil gas and, hence, and undermine the EU’s decarbonisation effort.

And it’s not only climate activists sounding the alarm on the PCI process. The EU’s Agency for Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER) has an integral role in the PCI process, assessing the consistency and transparency in the screening procedures.

In a recent expert opinion, ACER questioned the credibility and robustness of this process and called for stronger transparency in the selection of energy infrastructure projects.

In the previous round, in 2023, ACER concluded it was unable to assess whether proper regulatory criteria, mainly the application of the TEN-E Regulation criteria, and the cost-benefit analysis across all projects. In its recent opinion, released in early October, the agency underlined that many of the concerns raised two years ago remain, particularly regarding the selection process, the identification of infrastructure needs and the methodologies used to evaluate projects.

ACER’s latest findings echo other expert voices. The European Scientific Advisory Board on Climate Change similarly concluded in 2023 that the Ten-Year Network Development Plan (TYNDP) process, which is the basis for PCI and PMI selection, failed to adequately reflect the transformational changes and rapid emission reductions required to meet the EU’s 2050 climate neutrality and resilience targets. These shortcomings extend across the entire TYNDP process — from scenario development and system needs assessment to the cost-benefit analysis and the subsequent PCI/PMI selection.

In the current cycle, Bankwatch and other civil society groups called out several particularly questionable hydrogen projects that had been submitted by Member States. Though some have since been dropped for various reasons, others still appeared in the latest draft of the list.

Perhaps one explanation for this is that 90 percent of the hydrogen projects on the draft list were proposed by members of ENTSO-G, the lobby group of the European gas transmission industry.

EU governments and the Commission, like the fossil energy industry, have been fueling the hydrogen hype as a decarbonisation panacea. Yet, a closer look reveals that these ambitions are, at best, dangerously out of touch with reality. At worst, hydrogen expansion, surely if enabled with EU public money, would either chain Europe to fossil gas imports for decades or end up birthing countless stranded assets.

A Bankwatch report from December 2024, showed that the hydrogen strategies of Poland, Romania and Hungary are little more than exercises in wishful thinking that overlook serious issues of cost and efficiency.

Whereas the EU – for instance, in the Clean Industrial Deal communication – supposedly focuses on ‘green’ hydrogen, that is, H2 produced with renewable energy sources, the three governments are entertaining all options across the ‘hydrogen rainbow’. And governments’ proposed projects for PCI status reveal that their actual priority is fossil hydrogen.

On Friday, October 24, the final version of the proposed list was approved by the High Level Decision Making Body. Ahead of its decision, Bankwatch and 33 other NGOs sent a joint letter calling for the exclusion of all hydrogen projects from the PCI/PMI list, except for electrolyser projects powered by additional renewables. The groups also called for a review of the TEN-E Regulation, which governs the PCI process, to assess whether the current framework truly aligns with the EU’s efforts to address the climate crisis and energy objectives.

By the end of November the European Commission is supposed to release the PCI/PMI list in the form of a delegated act. Later, the European Parliament and the Council have a two months period during which they can object to the delegated act as a whole.

There is no doubt that the EU should prioritise genuinely sustainable energy infrastructure. Electrification based on renewables has to be ramped up and Europe’s grids are in urgent need of upgrade. This is the EU’s actual common interest, not more pipe dreams.

Romania’s Parliament paves the way for environmental destruction and ‘foreign agent’ repression

This law allows for the destruction of 27 protected areas, including two national parks, in order to finalise the construction of outdated hydropower projects. The law applies to projects whose construction began prior to June 2007 – when Romania set up its Natura 2000 network – having thus a retractive application, which the Constitution forbids.

Several of these hydropower projects were started over 40 years ago during the Ceaușescu era, without any environmental impact assessment, and have been halted in recent years either by court decisions – at the initiative of NGOs, such as Bankwatch Romania and Declic – or due the insolvency of their promoter, state owned company Hidroelectrica, between 2012 and 2016.

This new law – in clear contravention of EU environmental safeguards – tries to legalise the shrinking of protected areas to enable the projects to proceed, as well as abolishing the obligation to carry out environmental assessments for the projects. This would result in mass deforestation in some of Romania’s untouched mountain forests. It permits the damming and draining of rivers, which will drive rare fish species to extinction and degrade freshwater resources upon which millions depend.

A now-familiar authoritarian playbook

The recent adoption of the so-called ‘Zamfir Law’ represents far more than an environmental catastrophe in the making – it signals a fundamental assault on democratic principles, the rule of law, and civil society itself. What we are witnessing is a coordinated attack that follows a now-familiar authoritarian playbook: override court decisions, pass legislation that violates constitutional protections and EU law, then silence dissent by delegitimising and threatening those who dare to oppose it.

These are not theoretical concerns. These are hydropower projects whose environmental permits have been suspended or canceled by courts due to serious legal violations. They rely on outdated technology and would make a negligible contribution to electricity generation, despite being claimed by various politicians to be ‘strategic projects of overriding public interest’, which would allegedly solve a no-longer-existing energy crisis. The energy security argument is a smokescreen. There is no impact study demonstrating that completing these projects would reduce electricity bills.

Meanwhile, Hidroelectrica itself is installing a 64 MW (256 MWh) storage unit at the Iron Gates II hydro power plant, using EU funds, and showing that less damaging alternatives exist.

Constitutional violations

This law fundamentally contradicts the Romanian Constitution’s guarantee of environmental protection and violates the established principle that Parliament cannot arbitrarily diminish protections already in place for natural areas. Environmental organisations have called on President Nicușor Dan to refer the law to the Constitutional Court before promulgation.

Romania is not in a state of emergency that would justify such exceptional measures. The energy impact of these targeted projects would be insignificant at the national level, below 1 per cent of the current electricity generation – completely disproportionate to the irreversible destruction they would cause.

Not just environmental destruction, but also the rhetoric of repression

What makes this situation even more alarming, what transforms it from an environmental crisis into a democratic emergency, is the response from the law’s architects when civil society organisations dared to raise these concerns.

Senator Zamfir’s reaction should give the chills to anyone who values democratic freedoms. In a public statement, he declared ‘war’ on Environment Minister Diana Buzoianu, calling her an ‘NGO minister’ and accusing her of coordinating with what he termed ‘eco-terrorists’ engaged in ‘public jihad’. The Ministry of Environment, according to the Zamfir Law, has 60 days to remove the ‘protected area’ status from sites affected by hydropower projects, something the environment minister called ‘a disgrace’.

Zamfir however dismissed legitimate environmental concerns as protecting ‘little fish, little frogs, and little birds’. But he didn’t stop at inflammatory rhetoric. He issued a direct threat, promising to expose the ‘saboteur minister’s interests’ and demanding to know who finances Bankwatch Romania, Agent Green and Declic, and why they ‘attack all the country’s energy projects’.

This is the language of authoritarian regimes. This is how governments prepare the ground for ‘foreign agent’ laws that stifle civil society and crush dissent. We have seen this script in Russia, Hungary, Georgia, Slovakia and elsewhere: first delegitimise critics as foreign-controlled traitors, then legislate them out of existence.

The former Energy Minister’s comments in Parliament reinforce this pattern. He dismissed evidence-based concerns about environmental assessments as ‘nonsense’ and ‘well-paid propaganda’. The messages are unmistakable: criticism is unpatriotic, civil society organizations are foreign agents, and those who defend the environment are ‘small people’ standing in the way of national greatness.

An urgent call to the European Commission

The European Commission must take immediate notice. This law directly violates the Habitats Directive and Birds Directive, which establish Natura 2000 sites that cannot be arbitrarily degraded, as well as the Water Framework Directive requiring protection of water ecosystems. Romania’s Parliament has passed legislation that is incompatible with EU law and has done so in defiance of court decisions that already suspended environmental and permits for many of these projects.

The Commission has tools at its disposal, which must be deployed now, before this precedent becomes normalised.

Senator Zamfir asks who finances Bankwatch Romania, Declic, Agent Green, and other environmental organisations. The answer is transparent and public: we are funded by Romanian citizens, European institutions, and international foundations committed to environmental protection and democratic governance. Our funding sources are disclosed. Our work is subject to legal oversight. We are accountable to the public and to the law.

The real question is this: who benefits from destroying Romania’s protected rivers and forests? Who gains from inefficient hydropower projects? In recent years, Romanian politicians have repeatedly joined hands to destroy nature and have hidden their obscure interests behind populist facades.

Romania faces a choice. It can uphold its Constitution, respect its European obligations, and maintain space for civil society to function freely. Or it can continue down a path where laws are passed in defiance of constitutional protections, where criticism is met with intimidation, and where civil society is delegitimised as a prelude to repression.

The European Commission must act now. Launch infringement procedures. Invoke Rule of Law mechanisms. Make clear that destroying protected areas and threatening civil society are incompatible with EU membership.

The Romanian Constitutional Court must recognise this law for what it is: an unconstitutional assault on established environmental protections. Romanian citizens must not be fooled by rhetoric about ‘little fish’ and ‘foreign agents’. When governments can arbitrarily destroy protected areas and intimidate those who object, no right is secure.

The coming weeks will determine whether constitutional protections and the rule of law prevail, or whether power, unbound by legal constraints, will triumph over principle.

Bankwatch România, Declic Community, Agent Green, EcoLegal Association, and Eco-Civica Foundation are transparent civil society organisations working to protect Romania’s environment and democratic institutions. Our funding sources are publicly disclosed, our work is legally compliant, and our commitment is to the Romanian people and future generations.

Expanding the Emerald Network: Progress and gaps in the Western Balkans

Strong interest not enough

Yet despite acknowledging some progress, the expert group agreed on the urgent need to put more valuable sites under protection – seen as crucial for preventing the extinction of threatened species and habitats and meeting the objectives of the Convention’s strategic plan until 2030. For instance, the Balkan region in particular is home to many endemic species that occur nowhere else on the planet, including the Dalmatian minnow (Delminichthys adspersus), the Neretva nase (Chondrostoma knerii) and the Vardar streber (Zingel balcanicus).

At the meeting, several Balkan countries expressed strong interest in expanding the Emerald Network, but unfortunately no concrete deadlines were set for submitting new sites. Serbia has prepared a map and list of potential Emerald sites, but has yet to submit them to the Bern Convention. Montenegro has mapped nearly its entire territory, but biological data require analysis. And in Bosnia and Herzegovina, data availability remains low, with more research needed.

Since 2011, no additions to the Emerald Network have been made, primarily due to political and administrative obstacles, even though sufficient scientific data has long been available supporting the inclusion of new sites. In December 2022, a coalition of scientists and environmental organisations proposed a shadow list of 88 sites to be added to the Network.

Environmental harms unresolved

Regrettably, many existing and potential Emerald sites remain under severe threat from large infrastructure and mining projects, which are being prioritised over environmental protection and sustainable development.

This has resulted in cases of extensive degradation that remain largely unaddressed. Sites such as Komarnica Canyon and the Lower Piva River Canyon in Montenegro, Upper Neretva and Upper Drina in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Golija in Serbia are all at risk from planned hydropower plants that would irreversibly damage landscapes and river ecosystems.

Dozens of mines are planned for pristine natural areas all over the region. The Serbian mountain range of Fruška Gora is exposed to uncontrolled logging, while other Serbian mountain ranges like Zlatibor and Kopaonik, along with coastal Emerald sites such as Velika Plaža and Buljarica in Montenegro, continue to face strong pressure from construction.

Designation must mean protection

These cases illustrate a broader concern that Emerald site designation currently provides little real protection, as short-term economic interests often prevail over human well-being, public benefits, long-term economic growth, innovation, conservation and sustainability.

Across the Western Balkans weak enforcement, competing development priorities, and insufficient institutional commitment continue to undermine biodiversity protection. The issues observed reflect systemic regional patterns that threaten to erase some of Europe’s last intact natural areas and habitats of global ecological importance.

The Bern Convention has therefore renewed its call for national governments, international institutions, and civil society organisations to intensify joint efforts to safeguard these irreplaceable ecosystems. Urgent action is needed to ensure that Emerald Network sites are not merely symbolic designations, but living, protected spaces where nature and local communities can thrive, embodying the commitment of all European states to promote conservation and the fight against biodiversity loss.