Despite clear evidence that key energy facilities in Serbia have been operating for years without integrated permits (IPPC permits), the First Basic Public Prosecutor’s Office in Belgrade has once again issued a decision dismissing RERI’s complaint alleging economic offence, against the Joint Stock Company Elektroprivreda Srbije (EPS) and the responsible individuals.
Operating Without Permits Beyond the Statutory Deadline
Under the law, thermal power plants Kostolac A, Nikola Tesla A and B, as well as the Vreoci Kolubara Processing heating plant, operated by EPS, were required to obtain integrated permits by the end of 2024. These permits comprehensively regulate the operating conditions of large industrial installations and activities that may adversely affect human health or the environment, including emission controls, environmental protection measures, monitoring, supervision and other matters relevant to the prevention and control of environmental pollution.
In addition to the facilities listed above, the complaint also concerned the Morava and Kolubara thermal power plants, which, although omitted from the latest publicly available list published by the Ministry, fall under the same legal regime pursuant to the law. We specifically emphasized that the use of the so-called “opt-out” regime under which these two thermal power plants operate, did not constitute a permanent exemption from the obligation to obtain integrated permits. On the contrary, the regime merely allowed for a limited continuation of operations until the expiry of 20,000 operating hours, while these facilities continued operating even after that limit had been exceeded, justified by the need to preserve energy stability.
RERI first filed a complaint in 2021 regarding the operation of these thermal power plants without integrated permits, noting that the deadline for obtaining such permits had expired on 31 December 2020. That complaint was dismissed after legislative amendments adopted at the end of 2021 extended the deadline for obtaining integrated permits until the end of 2024. It is important to note that EPS had already submitted applications for integrated permits for certain facilities back in 2013. However, after the Ministry of Environmental Protection requested additional documentation, there was no substantive progress in those procedures for more than seven years.
The most recent decision dismissing the complaint indicates that EPS submitted new applications for certain facilities only at the end of 2023 and the beginning of 2024. Subsequently, the Ministry took months to request clarification from EPS on technical matters, specifically whether the submitted applications should be treated as new applications or as replacements for previously submitted ones. The Ministry then requested additional documentation, while EPS simultaneously sought extensions of the deadlines in order to gather all relevant documents adjacent to the application. As a result, the procedures continued throughout 2025, despite the fact that the statutory deadline for obtaining the permits expired on 31 December 2024.
“Complicated Procedures” Instead of Accountability — No One Responsible?
The Prosecutor’s decision suggests that the Ministry of Environmental Protection has, for years, maintained these procedures in a state of administrative limbo. The fact that integrated permits for certain facilities have not been issued for more than a decade was not regarded by the Prosecutor’s Office as evidence of a serious failure in the implementation of the law, but rather as a consequence of “complicated procedures.” Instead of such circumstances serving as grounds for establishing responsibility, they have effectively been normalized and treated as standard institutional practice.
The Prosecutor’s Office relied precisely on this institutional inefficiency as grounds for dismissing the complaint, referring to the statement of EPS’s General Director that the Ministry had requested additional documentation, that the procedures were ongoing, and that he “could not specify who might be responsible for a potential economic offence.” Nevertheless, while citizens continue to inhale harmful by-products emitted by thermal power plants, the Prosecutor’s Office found no basis for an ex officio investigation of the responsibility for the fact that major energy facilities have been operating for years without permits explicitly required by law.
Such a decision sends a dangerous message that in Serbia, the compliance with standards of protection of the environment and public health is optional, and that administrative procedures intended to ensure the enforcement of the law may instead serve for years as a shield against accountability for unlawful operation of industrial facilities – all under the pretext that “the procedure is still ongoing” and “one more document is missing.”