Minister Vipotnik is breaking the law because of the Russian oligarch

15.07.2024. / 17:01

BANJALUKA – The District Court in Banja Luka accepted the lawsuit of the Center for the Environment and annulled the permit issued by the Ministry of Spatial Planning, Construction and Ecology of the Republic of Srpska for the thermal power plant Ugljevik III.

This is the fourth time that the environmental permit for the project, which was awarded through a concession to the Russian oligarch Rašid Serdarov and his company “Comsar Energy” 11 years ago, has been “demolished”.

The court rendered its verdict in an administrative dispute initiated by the Center in October 2023, after the relevant ministry led by Bojan Vipotnik, despite having officially suspended the decision-making process on the issuance of an environmental permit, decided again to issue this environmental permit at the request of the investor. permit for the planned project.

The Center reminds that the ministry first in July 2013 made a conclusion, that is, a decision terminating the procedure for issuing an environmental permit for “Ugljevik 3”.

Namely, the procedure was suspended pending the decision of the Supreme Court of Republika Srpska, because the ministry requested a review of the court verdict, which also annulled the decision by which the Environmental Impact Study was approved for the same project, also at the request of the Center.

However, as clearly seen in the verdict, the ministry refuted its conclusion and issued an environmental permit.

“The defendant should have remained with the conclusion that terminated the procedure for issuing an environmental permit, until its completion“, the judgment states.

It adds that even though the ministry stopped the procedure, it acted according to the proposal of “Comsar”, behaving as if they had not made any decisions before.

“The defendant violated the rules of the procedure, the consequence of which is an illegal legal act, which the prosecutor rightly points out in the lawsuit, which is why it should have been respected and the contested act annulled“, the judgment reads.

Also, in addition to the obvious violation of the procedure, the court reasoned that the lack of evaluation of the evidence is an additional reason for canceling the permit, because the Ministry had the duty to clearly present the decision-making process.

Legal adviser at the Center for the Environment, Redžib Skomorac, says that in this case, the ministry, violating its own conclusion, created a new precedent in deepening legal uncertainty in the field of concessions in the Republic of Srpska.

“This is not in the interest of investors, the local community, or the rule of law in this BiH entity“, he says.

In the Center for the Environment, and in order to enforce the verdict, they demand from the ministry to act according to the binding court instruction, that is, to stop deciding on the disputed request of the investor.

They say that due to the persistent approval of this private project, after the last illegal action of the public authorities, they filed a complaint with the Secretariat of the Energy Community, due to the violation of the Agreement on the establishment of this community, of which BiH is a signatory.

Otherwise, the ministry did not dispute the fact that it made a decision to stop the proceedings, and they tried to justify themselves in an unusual way before the court.

Namely, while the conclusion on the suspension of the procedure was in force, “Comsar” contacted them with a request for the issuance of an environmental permit, on the basis of which they initiated a new administrative procedure, which in their opinion is not even similar to the one they suspended.

In their response to the lawsuit, “Comsar” stated that in their new request, they submitted additional evidence about the operation of the power plant, which, they claim, shows that it is equipped with all modern systems to prevent air pollution.

According to the plan, the thermal power plant “Ugljevik 3” was supposed to be built near the existing thermal power plant owned by Republika Srpska, which operates as part of “Elektroprivreda RS”.

For its work, it was supposed to use coal from the surface mine “Ugljevik istok 2”, which “Comsar” also claims on the basis of the concession contract.

However, the miners from the state mine demand that the concession be terminated and awarded to “RiTE Ugljevik” in order to have a secure job in the coming years as well.

By the way, Srpska has on several occasions met, given numerous benefits and extended construction deadlines to the Russian investor, violating even European regulations and taking on obligations that are not within its jurisdiction.

Portal CAPITAL wrote about it in the text “Due to the Russian oligarch, Serbia risks shutting down the largest electricity producer”.

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