On 15th of May 2015 the Serbian Ministry of Agriculture and Environmental Protection in cooperation with Environment Agency Austria (Umweltbundesamt) and Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety (BMUB) Germany officially launched the EU Twinning project – Improvement of hazardous waste management in the Republic of Serbia.
Opening speeches were given by H.E. Mr. Oskar Benedikt – Deputy Head of the Delegation of the European Union to the Republic of Serbia, representatives from the Embassy of Austria and Embassy of Germany, Mr. Georg Rebernig – Managing Director-Environment Agency Austria, Mrs. Tanja Miščević – Head of the team for the EU accession negotiations process, Mrs. Snezana Boskovic Bogosavljević -Minister- Ministry of Agriculture and Environmental Protection of the Republic of Serbia, Mrs. Stana Bozovic – State Secretary, and other representatives from Serbian, Austrian and German administration.
This opening ceremony informed all stakeholders as well as media about the project. At the same time, the event was an opportunity to ensure a platform for further cooperation in order to successfully implement the project foreseen targets..
As a candidate country Serbia has to harmonise the national legislation with the European aquis. Apart of that the main challenge in the waste management field remain the insufficient coverage and capacities for basic services such as collection, transport and disposal of waste, as well as lack of infrastructure for treatment and disposal of hazardous waste. Therefore, through this project the development of the national plan for the hazardous waste management will provide a comprehensive overview on the hazardous waste generation in Serbia, taking into account the outputs from the previous Twinning Project “Strengthening Institutional Capacity in Hazardous Waste Management”- (2010 – 2013) thus, continuing the process of waste planning.
The 2 year-long twinning project, funded by the EU with 1,000,000 Euros aims to assist Serbia to meet environmental acquis through institutional building and improvement of environmental infrastructure.
The twinning project will be implemented by the Ministry of Agriculture and Environmental Protection in partnership with the Environment Agency Austria (Umweltbundesamt) and Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety (BMUB) Germany. A team of 39 experts both from Austria and Germany will work with the Serbian colleagues to transfer know-how and EU best practices in the field. The project will involve a series of stakeholders, including central and local public authorities, industry and civil society organisations.
To complete process of legislation development and strategic planning the project foresees the following results and outputs: Analysis of Serbian legislation about specific waste streams followed by recommendations; By-laws; Study on the institutional organization of hazardous waste management system in Serbia; Recommendation for improvement of current waste management systems based on best practices that covers 3 EU member states; Working plans for development of SWSPs and IHWMP according to a Methodological guidance note, issued by the EC’s DG Environment in 2012; Specific waste streams plans (SWSPs); An Integrated hazardous waste management plan (IHWMP) which will consolidate all specific hazardous waste streams plans and hazardous waste from industry; Training needs analysis report and corresponding training plan; Guideline for hazardous waste management; Trainings/seminars, workshops and study visits carried out as planned.
Information about hazardous waste
Hazardous wastes pose a greater risk to the environment and human health than non hazardous wastes and thus require a stricter regime. This is laid down in particular in Articles 17 to 20 of Directive 2008/98/EC. It provides additional labelling, record keeping, monitoring and control obligations from the “cradle to the grave”, i.e., from the waste producer to the final disposal or recovery. All of this means that waste is an issue that has an impact on a very wide range of stakeholders and to manage it in an integrated way have to be an aim of all policies and strategic documents.