It’s Time to Act on Air Pollution in the Balkans

After running into an institutional 'brick wall', they have resorted to organising creative flash mobs such as a 'masked ball', donning protective masks even before the advent of COVID-19.

In the Bosnian city of Tuzla, where a coal mine was expanded via financing by China's Exim bank in 2017, citizens are still protesting against air pollution: "Stop poisoning us!" they cried again this month.

On January 10, 2021, thousands of protestors marched through Belgrade, asking for clarity concerning pollution measurements and for the reinstatement of air pollution expert Milenko Jovanovic, who was fired from the state agency in charge of air quality control under unclear circumstances after raising concerns over the way air pollution is measured.

The health risk

A man jogs in a park on a polluted day in Belgrade, Serbia, 2020. Photo: EPA-EFE/ANDREJ CUKIC

The outrage of citizens is understandable. Pollution has reached levels so high across the Balkans that the health hazard is impossible to ignore.

Serbian and other Balkan cities regularly top lists of the most polluted cities in the world.

As reported by the Health and Environmental Alliance, 16 coal-based power plants in South-Eastern Europe produce more pollution than those in the rest of Europe combined.

A 2019 report by the Global Alliance for Health and Pollution, GAHP, found that Serbia had Europe's worst per capita record for pollution-related deaths: 175 per 100,000 people.

After repeated instances of 'red dust' and 'red rain', Smederevo found itself covered by thick black dust in July 2020. Recorded levels of 1645 mg/m3 of sulphur dioxide in Bor in September 2020 exceeded by more than tenfold the 125 mg/m3 permitted...