RERI: EPS Ordered by Court to Reduce Emissions from Thermal Power Plants Due to Jeopardizing Citizens’ Health

The Higher Court in Belgrade has made the first-instance verdict in favor of the Renewables and Environmental Regulatory Institute (RERI) and ordered Elektroprivreda Srbije (EPS) to reduce the emissions of sulfur-dioxide in its thermal power plants due to the danger they pose to people’s health and the living environment.

The lawsuit, which RERI filed in January 2021, followed several submitted requests for an extraordinary inspection supervision in the TPPs of EPS due to drastically exceeding the maximum allowed emissions of sulfur dioxide, which the Ministry of Environmental Protection claimed had no basis, RERI says in its press release.

They add that the court has determined that the initiation of the court procedure was the only remaining legal instrument toward preventing the further jeopardizing of people’s health and the living environment.

Since back in January 2018, EPS has been obligated to reduce the emissions of sulfur dioxide from their facilities, in line with the National Emission Reduction Plan (NERP), which Serbia obliged itself to by ratifying the Energy Community Treaty. However, in 2018 and 2019 alone, the TPPs Nikola Tesla and Kostolac issued six times more sulfur dioxide than allowed, and the excessive emissions continued in the ensuing years as well.

– The aim of the lawsuit was to protect the citizens’ health, which has been jeopardized due to years of EPS violating local and international regulations. This is also confirmed by the fact that, in reaching its decision, the court was also guided by the European Convention on Human Rights and ordered EPS to harmonize its activities with the regulations, so as not to jeopardize people’s lives and health. Due to this, this verdict must not remain merely formal. We expect EPS to comply with the decision and implement the necessary measures so that it would reduce the future emissions of sulfur dioxide to the maximum allowed values – says the program director of RERI, Mirko Popovic.

The verdict of the Higher Court also relies to a great extent on the expert analysis that RERI submitted, and which was prepared for the purposes of the suing party by professor Dragana Jovanovic, a pulmonologist. Her unequivocal findings determine that the multiple overstepping of the sulfur dioxide emissions lead to a wide range of consequences to human health, such as difficulties with breathing, the occurrence of long-lasting asthma, bronchitis, the chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, all the way to the most serious ones, like the increased mortality rate of respiratory and cardiovascular diseases, the likelihood of dementia, strokes, damage to the normal development of an embryo and disorders related to lung development in children.

– The verdict passed by the Higher Court in Belgrade in RERI’s lawsuit is the first of its kind based on the regulations adopted nearly 50 years ago – the Law on Contractual Relations, and it is a legal precedent which considerably improves the court practice when it comes to the protection of collective interests, the citizens’ health and the preservation of the environment. Although EPS has the right to appeal to the second-instance court, we hope that they will start, without delay, with the activities which will lead to harmonizing with the court’s first-instance verdict, because it pertains to a ratified international agreement, whose implementation is mandatory and is in public interest – adds the layer and the president of the Management Board of RERI, Jovan Rajic.

RERI

Elektroprivreda Srbije ad Beograd

RERI

EPS

Higher Court Belgrade

Mirko Popovic

Jovan Rajic

Thermal Power Plant Nikola Tesla

Thermal Power Plant Kostolac

sulfur dioxide emissions

lawsuit

overstepping of maximum allowed sulfur dioxide emissions

court procedure

jeopardizing human health

National Emission Reduction Plan

Energy Community Treaty

Law on Contractual Relations