Comply or Close 2024: six years of deadly legal breaches by Western Balkan coal plants

Report    |    17 September 2024

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Photo: Arnika/Martin Plocek

The end of 2023 marked six years since the deadline passed for power plants in the Western Balkans to meet new air pollution standards. Yet the deadly air pollution from the region’s mostly antiquated coal power plants has hardly decreased at all since 2018. 

In 2023, total SO2 emissions from plants included in the National Emissions Reduction Plans (NERPs) of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, North Macedonia and Serbia were 5.7 times as high as allowed – higher than in 2022 and only slightly lower than the annual emissions from 2018 to 2020, when they were six times as high as allowed.

Dust and NOX pollution also remained above the sum of the emissions allowed for each country.

Moreover, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Serbia all breached the ‘opt-out’ provision, which allowed the smallest and oldest plants to operate without pollution control for a limited number of hours until the end of 2023. All the plants covered by this provision in the countries are still operating.

The Western Balkan governments must finally start to govern and stop letting energy utilities endlessly extend their own deadlines. And the EU must do more to enforce the Energy Community Treaty and ensure an efficient, sustainable and just energy transition based on 100 per cent renewable energy.

This publication is also available in Albanian, Bosnian, Macedonian and Serbian.

Check the Comply or Close page for more information.