Photo: Kristina Radovanović, pravonareku.org.rs
Published Annual Report of the European Commission has not been titled the progress report for years. We’ve been waiting for the report for quite a while, so its announcement coincided with the end of the school year. Here’s the inspiration to look at what grades Serbia received in Chapter 27 (Environment and Climate Change).
D for the end and we slipped through again.
The EU Enlargement Strategy 2015 provides a descriptive evaluation scale for the position and progress of the countries over the last 12 months. There are five benchmarks for both the evaluation of the position and the progress made, let’s call them grades.
In the Chapter 27, in 2019 the European Commission gave a descriptive grade to Serbia some level of preparation which would correspond to D on the position grades scale. The same grade, therefore D, was in 2018 report. The evaluation of progress made in the previous 12 months is as follows limited progress, which is D+, right between no progress and some progress. On the second scale, Serbia had C in 2018 (some progress).
The worst, it seems, has been in the area of climate change, the evaluation of the position is D (some level of preparation) but the implementation of the regulations was evaluated with F (early stage). The same as in 2018. Does that come as “one-on-two”? That can be upgraded at a teacher council meeting.
What’s next? To warm up a chair or to pull teacher’s sleeve?
Perhaps, after all, let’s add a little optimism at the end and recall Minister Joksimovic’s words from April last year:
“The report is good for Serbia – Serbia did not decline in any field.“
Mirko Popović, Programme Director