Chapter 27 of the EU ascension negotiations – environment and climate change – will be opened most probably in June, and most of the work around it will be to secure finances and staff to meet commitments from this toughest and most expensive chapter, it was confirmed for Vijesti at the Ministry for Sustainable Development and Tourism.
“At this moment, this is a realistic and likely deadline,” said chief of the negotiations group and director of the Environment Directorate Ivana Vojinović. She explained that EU member states will in the Council of Ministers be introduced to the proposal of the negotiation position, which means the European Commission will support the text and defend it in the name of Montenegro.
“Minister Pavle Radulović took part in the environment ministers meeting in Sofia on April 11, together with European Commissioner for Environment Karmenu Vella, and was encouraged about opening this Chapter in June thanks to the satisfaction with the progress we have made. NGOs presented various reviews regarding the speed of the entire process. Of course, we would be satisfied too if it all went at maximum speed, but this chapter is extremely difficult. The very Progress Report states that we are well on the way. It was concluded that we have a certain degree of readiness, which is a solid rating for a chapter which has not been opened yet,” said Vojinović. One of the key conclusions in the Progress Report is that financial and staff capacity need to be bolstered and that the implementation of regulations is missing. An objection was also the integration of the Environment and Nature Protection Agency into the Ministry and Montenegro has been asked to secure the independence of that institution.
“The expertise of staff in this area has been significantly improved. As for implementation, I agree we need to upgrade capacity and find a different way to use staff in all institutions dealing with the environment. Very often the EC has asked us why Agency staff was not previously more involved in the negotiation process. One of the reasons for the integrations into the Ministry was the need for better use of staff in the coming phase of negotiations whose focus will be implementation of regulations,” added Vojinović.
She noted 1.4 billion euro are needed by 2035 to fulfil commitments from this chapter. Most of the funds, as per the plan, are due to be collected via the eco fund, a key mechanism to finance environment projects. The deadline for its founding is August of 2018. The study for its establishment was done by the Croatian institute Hrvoje Požar, containing three scenarios which foresee annual income from 500.000 to 30 million euro.
“Our goal is the get the eco fund functioning by the end of 2018, to be established by the government. We will strive to withdraw all available finances from the IPA funds. This will not be an issue, as they are coordinated by the EC and they know what the priorities are, although those funds are not sufficient. We will look into affordable loans, especially to build infrastructure. The very ascension to the EU opens access to structural funds which are much bigger than IPA,” underlined Vojinović.
Transformation of the National Parks public company into a market company will be complete this year and it is expected to remain in state ownership. “This is a commitment defined by the law advancing business environment which provides that all public companies need to be transformed into some form of a market company. We are currently transforming the Regional Waterworks company, and National Parks will complete the process during 2018. It is not easy to execute a transformation as the latter’s basic function is to preserve public interest in national parks. This is nearly eight percent of the most valuable state territory. Besides, it is also temporarily managing the Saltworks,” explained Vojinović.
Translated from Vijesti Online, click here for the original.
