Twinning Light: Country Partnership Austria - Montenegro
Environment Agency Austria supported Montenegro in the development of an upgraded integrated tool and update of air emissions inventory
Montenegro is preparing for EU accession and therefore fundamentally revised and expended its air emissions inventory. In this, the EU candidate country has been supported by experts of the Environment Agency Austria.
Client:
Montenegro Ministry of Finance and Social Welfare, Directorate for Finance and Contracting of the EU Assistance Funds
Project Duration:
10 Months, June 2021 to April 2022
Starting Point and Overall Objectives:
For a country to join the EU, it needs to meet high standards, which also concern the area of air emissions.
Montenegro has been an EU candidate country since 2010. In order to fulfill the requirements for accession, Montenegro has to implement reforms in the sector and reduce its national emissions. However, the country’s air emission inventory was lastly consistent over the whole time series updated in 2011 and did not comply with EU directives. Furthermore, the capacities of the Environment Protection Agency of Montenegro (EPA Montenegro) were not sufficient to guarantee reliable, permanent reporting.
Therefore, the project aimed to ensure regular reporting of Montenegro following EU directives and regulations. Furthermore, it strengthened EPA's human resources and administrative and monitoring capacities for environmental reporting.
Objective of the Project:
To join the EU, Montenegro needs reliable data collection and regular reporting on air and greenhouse gas emissions. For this reason, the twinning light partnership pursued to assist Montenegro in implementing respective measures, harmonized with EU directives.
In addition, it was central to strengthen the human resources, administrative and monitoring capacity of the Environment Protection Agency of Montenegro (EPA Montenegro).
Therefore, the project aimed to enable the sustainability of the national air emission and GHG inventory system. One the one hand, this was done by developing upgraded integrated tools for calculating the GHG and air pollutants, on the other hand by updating the air emission inventory. As a result national pollutant and GHG emissions can now be calculated in a single system.
Our Approach:
The inventory was fundamentally revised by including previously missing sources in the Excel inventory template and processing data since 1990 in a consistent manner. This provided the basis for Montenegro to fulfill its international reporting obligations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (National Inventory Report, NIR) and the Convention on long-range transboundary air pollution (CLRTAP).
Apart from technical support, the capacities of EPA's institutions were strengthened. In addition, experts of the Environment Agency Austria provided their expertise and experience in managing and reporting pollutant and GHG inventory data.
Added Value:
Generally, the purpose of an EU’s twinning light project is to assist a potential EU Member State with its accession: On the one hand with capacity building, on the other hand by introducing national legislation in accordance with EU standards.
The Environment Agency Austria has participated in more than 120 twinning projects, which makes it a competent partner for Montenegro to reach its goals towards becoming an EU Member State and support the country throughout the first few years after accession.
Links:
Information about the country partnership Austria-Montenegro
Involved institutions:
Environmental Protection Agency Montenegro
Ministry of Finance and Social Welfare Montenegro
This project is funded by the European Union
