The informal Green Parliamentary Group (GPG) held a cross-sectoral meeting with representatives of the Ministry of Environmental Protection on 14 June. The topic of the meeting was the presentation of the draft Air Protection Program of the Republic of Serbia with an action plan, as well as the activities of the Ministry in this field. In addition, the Analysis of the Legislative Framework for Air Protection was presented.
The meeting was opened with introductory words by Lidija Radulovic in front of the GPG secretariat, MP and GPG coordinator Dubravka Filipovski, who emphasized the importance of this topic for the work of GPG, and Zorica Korac, in front of the United Nations Development Program. After that, the Assistant of the Minister in the Ministry of Environmental Protection, Aleksandra Imsaragic Djuric, presented the activities of the Ministry in the field of air protection and emphasized that the newly drafted Program is the first Air Protection Program in Serbia. While the experts who participated in the drafting of the Air Protection Program in the Republic of Serbia, Stevan Pecic and Mario Gasperic presented the draft Program itself. The MPs present had a significant number of questions on the content of the Program, and measures of financial support to citizens appeared as the main topic.
The meeting ended with the presentation of the Analysis of the Legislative Framework for Air Protection, which was presented by the author of the analysis, Ognjan Pantic. He concluded that, although cleaner air costs financially, the consequences of polluted air can be quantified in lost lives due to pollution, or lost working hours due to illness in the midst of excessive pollution, and all that “costs” much more.
