Serbia, as a candidate country for European Union (EU) membership, has undertaken significant efforts to harmonise its environmental legislation with EU standards. This alignment is crucial for ensuring transparency, public involvement, and access to justice in environmental matters. Despite legislative progress, notable gaps remain in implementation, enforcement, and consistency with domestic legal frameworks. Strengthening these areas will not only support Serbia’s EU integration but also help safeguard its environment and rich biodiversity.
Serbia ratified the Aarhus Convention in 2009, committing to its three foundational pillars: access to information, public participation in environmental decision-making, and access to justice in environmental matters [1]. Adopted in 1998 under the UN Economic Commission for Europe, the Aarhus Convention is a legally binding international agreement that links environmental rights and human rights by ensuring public involvement in environmental governance. Its core principle is that environmental protection is best achieved when the public is meaningfully involved in environmental decision-making. This Convention provides the bedrock for Serbia’s environmental governance approach and aligns closely with the EU’s environmental acquis, laying the groundwork for incorporating participatory rights into national law.
To further align with EU law under Chapter 27 of the accession negotiations (Environment and Climate Change), Serbia has worked to transpose key directives into its national framework. The Directive 2003/4/EC on public access to environmental information has been partially transposed through Serbia’s Law on Free Access to Information of Public Importance [2] and the Law on Environmental Protection [3]. These laws provide for citizens’ right to obtain environmental information, but in practice, institutional responsiveness is often inconsistent, and information is not always easily accessible.
The Directive 2003/35/EC, which strengthens public participation and access to justice in environmental matters, has been only partially adopted. Though legal procedures for public involvement exist, these are frequently limited to formalistic consultations held late in the process—when key decisions have already been shaped.
Serbia’s Law on Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), adopted in 2004 and revised later, introduced mechanisms to inform and consult the public about potentially harmful projects. Both the Law on EIA and the Law on Environmental Protection were revised in 2024. Although these revisions have claimed to have achieved greater alignment with EU directives, one of the ‘innovative’ aspects is ‘that it contributes to reducing administrative burdens and increasing process efficiency’ [4], which can cause concerns on whether procedural streamlining may come at the expense of transparency, thorough public consultation, and the quality of environmental assessments. The Institute of Renewable Energy and Environment (RERI) has expressed concerns that these adjustments may have opened doors to future risk of misuse through poor alignment with domestic laws [5]. The Strategic Environmental Assessment Directive was also transposed via Serbia’s 2004 law, which applies to policies and plans with significant environmental effects. However, both EIA and SEA processes have suffered from poor-quality assessments, limited public outreach, and inconsistent follow-through.
Serbia also ratified the Protocol on Pollutant Release and Transfer Registers in 2011, committing to greater transparency in pollution data [6]. Yet, the development of a fully functional and user-friendly registry is still underway.
Gaps in Practice
Despite progress on paper, several shortcomings persist. Public consultations are often organised too late to genuinely influence outcomes. Environmental information, though formally accessible, can be hard to obtain in practice due to administrative delays or lack of clear procedures. In many cases, affected citizens, particularly those in rural areas, are not meaningfully engaged in decisions that directly impact their health, land, and livelihoods. For example, according to the Serbia Report 2024 by the European Commission, there were 20,594 complaints filed to the Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Data Protection in 2023, out of which 37% were about ignoring requests of citizens seeking public information [7].
Access to justice is also limited. Legal recourse for challenging environmentally harmful decisions remains expensive, slow, and legally complex. Citizens and civil society organisations often lack standing or resources to pursue environmental litigation effectively. According to an article published in Monograph: 25 years of the Aarhaus Convention in South Eastern Europe, the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) case in Serbia clearly illustrates the barriers to environmental justice. Authorities initially treated SEA approvals as administrative acts subject to appeal but later reversed this position, claiming they were not individually challengeable, thereby creating legal uncertainty and denying civil society organizations like RERI a clear path to justice. Even when remedies are technically available, the legal process is slow, burdensome, and unpredictable, often taking years to resolve, during which environmental harm may already occur. Access is further limited by high thresholds for injunctive relief and unclear procedural rules, making it difficult for citizens and organizations to effectively protect their rights or the environment through the courts [8].
Perhaps most critically, state and corporate actors have, at times, used legal ambiguities or procedural loopholes to sideline the public from key decision-making moments, especially when politically or economically sensitive projects are involved.
Case Study: The Jadar Valley and Rio Tinto
These issues came into sharp focus during the conflict over the proposed Rio Tinto lithium mine in the Jadar Valley. Though Rio Tinto had mining prospects since the mid-2000s, mining protests didn’t start until 2020, escalating to 2021, because of a lack of transparency and communication. Locals had little say in the early stages, and the Environmental Impact Assessment process was seen by many experts as opaque and rushed. According to an article published in the prestigious journal Nature, this mine would be one of the first lithium mines in the world opened in a densely populated agricultural land and could have irreversible social and ecological consequences which would last for generations [10].
Despite fierce local resistance and nationwide protests—including road blockades, petitions, and legal challenges—communities faced significant barriers in accessing timely, accurate information and engaging in official decision-making channels. Public hearings were held only after critical steps had been taken or in symbolic ways, while proposed legislative changes, such as amendments to the Law on Expropriation and Law on Referendum and Citizen’s Initiative, were widely perceived as tools to accelerate land appropriation for private investment. These moves sparked widespread outrage, with protesters interpreting them as direct threats to democratic processes and land rights. According to legal scholars and environmental activists, the state’s heavy-handed response, including surveillance, public smear campaigns, and media manipulation, exposed systemic weaknesses in Serbia’s implementation of the Aarhus Convention. Environmental resistance culminated in the anti-Rio Tinto protest held in Belgrade in 2024, counting around 50,000 people [10]. Importantly, the European Union’s positioning, emphasising the strategic value of lithium for its green transition, was viewed by many as tacit support for the project, contributing to growing public skepticism toward the EU’s commitment to democratic environmental standards in accession countries like Serbia.
If Serbia was part of the EU with its high regulation on environmental standards, it would be impossible to open the Jadar lithium mine. Serbia’s entry into the EU is an urgent matter when it comes to nature protection and citizen participation in environmental decision-making, essential for nature and biodiversity protection.
References
[1] Aarhus Centres (n.d.) Aarhus Centres Serbia
[2] Law on Free Access to Information of Public Importance (In Serbian)
[3] Law on Environmental Protection (In Serbian)
[4] Key Changes in Serbia’s New Environmental Assessment Laws (2024) JPM Partners
[5] RERI: Amendments to Environmental Impact Assessment Regulations – A Solution to Old Problems or the Creation of New Ones? (2024) (In Serbian)
[6] UN: Serbia ratifies the PRTR Protocol (2011)
[7] EU Commission: Serbia 2024 Report
[8] osce: Monograph: 25 years of the Aarhus Convention in South Eastern Europe
[10] N1: The archive of public gatherings: List of the 10 largest open-air gatherings in Serbia in 2024 (In Serbian)
*585902.pdf : In Serbia, however, collective legal action has faced serious setbacks. Although collective redress (where organizations could file claims on behalf of the public) was introduced between 2009 and 2011 in various laws—including anti-discrimination and consumer protection laws—it was later removed. The Constitutional Court ruled parts of these laws unconstitutional, leading to the removal of key provisions that enabled organizations to sue. As a result, environmental organizations currently have no clear legal standing to act in court.
