EU member states continue to support Montenegro in building its administrative capacities. Austrian Environment Agency (Umweltbundesamt) and Environmental Protection Agency of Montenegro presented new twinning light project “Development of Upgraded Integrated Tool and Update of Air Emissions Inventory for the period 2011-2019” at a kick-off conference held in EU Info Centre. This capacity building project will transfer Austria’s expertise and experience to Montenegro.
The overall objective of the project is to ensure regular reporting of Montenegro on air emissions and greenhouse gasses (GHG) inventories, which is one of the closing benchmarks in Chapter 27 – Environment and Climate Change. Twinning partners will achieve this through various types of capacity building trainings, but also by upgrading a software solution and updating the inventory of air pollutants.
Sladjan Maslac from the Delegation of the European Union to Montenegro emphasized during the conference that environmental sector is one of the most important fields in accession negotiations and that air quality issue is not an exception.
„We have just recently invested around one million Euros in the area of upgrade of air quality monitoring system and also we had a small technical assistance projects. This project is a continuation of our support to Montenegro to develop air quality monitoring system which should serve primarily to Montenegrin citizens but also to meet requirements put forward by different EU regulations”, Maslac stated.
Iva Vujovic from the Directorate for Finance and Contracting of EU Assistance Funds (CFCU) stated that one of major obstacles in addressing the air quality issue is a lack of administrative capacities at all levels and that this project should help in removing this obstacle.
„There is no doubt that adequate ecological infrastructure is a prerequisite for overall development of the society and, at the same time, a necessity for successful EU accession negotiations. Therefore, the significance of this project lies in the fact that it enables sustainability of national inventory system for air emissions and green house gasses. Thanks to that, Montenegro will contribute to reduction of emissions of air pollutants, climate change mitigation and conservation of environment”, said Vujovic.
Duration of “Development of Upgraded Integrated Tool and Update of Air Emissions Inventory for the period 2011-2019” project is eight months. Its total value is EUR 250.000,00.