Nuclear power plant, coal power plants, new coal mines… and no strategic environmental assessment report!

On June 16^th, 2009, the Ministry of economy published the Draft Strategy for energy development in the Republic of Macedonia on their web site (www.economy.gov.mk) and on the very first step breached several articles of the Law on environment. Acording to the Law on environment, the energy strategy is one of the plan documents for which it is obligatory to conduct a strategic environmental assessment (SEA). The same law clearly states that the Ministry is obliged to publish at the same time the draft of the document and the SEA report. Still, there is no trace of SEA on the web site.

Energy production is one of the biggest polluters of the environment and its development has a direct impact on all citizens’ lives and all sectors in the society. This is the reason why the strategic environmental assessment is not a pure legal formality, but has a substantial meaning. Macedonian citizens have all the rights to be fully and correctly informed about the possible impacts of the suggested solutions in the Strategy on the environment and their health. They also have all the rights to participate in the process of adoption of this important document. Considering the fact that some of the solutions this Strategy suggests include nuclear power plant, new coal power plants, new coal mines, etc – it is clear that the impact on the environment and human health will be significant, long-range and long lasting.

In March, this year, Front 21/42 sent a letter to the Ministry to remind them on their legal obligations regarding the SEA and the public participation. The letter was signed by 12 more organizations. And yet, three months later the Ministry ignores everything we pointed to: there is no SEA and instead of publishing a date and place of a public hearing there is only an opportunity to send electronic comments.

This time, together with “Macedonian Green Center”, “Eco-sense”, “ORT”, “Proactiva”, “Parumba MKD” and “Avena”, we sent another letter and clearly asked:

1.      The day of the publishing of the Draft Strategy, June 16^th 2009, not to be considered as the starting day of the consultations with the public. The consultations can begin after the SEA report is published.

2.      The process of preparation of the SEA to be in complete compliance with the legislation, including the cross border consultations with the neighboring countries which might suffer consequences from any of the suggested scenarios.

3.      After all these legal obligations are fulfilled, the Ministry should publish on their web site the date, time and place of the public hearing they are obliged to organize. Publishing of the document and providing a link for electronic comments, as it is now, is not a public hearing, its’ only one of the possible ways for consulting the public.

We expect an answer from the Ministry in a shortest possible time and we hope they will not forget about Aarhus Convention and ignore our letter, thus adding to the breaching of the law.