They said that the whole Western Balkan region faces the same environmental challenges, one of the biggest being funding. The policy of environmental funding should be integrated in the country’s macroeconomic policy because that is the only way to ensure the safety of the environment, its longevity and continuity, and EU accession is vital for regional sustainable development.

The officials also discussed the Green Fund concluding that it needs to be supervised and that the 10 billion of RSD channelled into the state budget from the Green Fund have to be invested into environmental protection, not just a third of the sum as is now the case, adding that the opening of Chapter 27 is an investment into the future.

The meeting was attended by MPs MA Goran Cabradi, Nada Lazic, Jasmina Karanac, Sonja Pavlovic, Olena Papuga, Branimir Jovanovic and Dr Predrag Jelenkovic, MPs from Macedonia and Montenegro and sustainable development and environmental protection experts.