Functional Review of the Ministry of Environment and Spatial Planning

SECTION III. RECOMMENDATIONS REGARDING SPECIFIC FUNCTIONS
This section summarizes the main recommendations regarding specific business functions of the MESP.
The functions covered include policy analysis and coordination, legislative coordination, implementation,
the inspection function and supervision. The aim of these recommendations is to increase the overall
performing capacity of the departments described.
III.1 Environmental Protection Department (DEP) / Department of Waters (DoW)
The following four recommendations relate to both “environmental” departments. Even understaffed, they
have mandate to deal with their particular functions.
III.1.1 Legislative function
Kosovo adopted a set of environmental laws comprising i) environmental protection; ii) air protection; iii)
water protection; and iv) waste management. Some other environmental laws are presently under
discussion. This specifically environmental legislation is to a considerable extent harmonised with the EU
acquis (it should be mentioned that it is not needed at this stage in terms of full implementation). It
introduces environmental impact assessment (EIA) and strategic environmental assessment (SEA) as new
elements of environmental management.
The above mentioned laws prescribed adoption of sub-laws and defines the responsibilities of different
bodies in this respect. The necessary secondary legislation is in some cases lagging behind, so that
currently part of the legislation is still blocked for use in practice.
For implementation of this legislative framework, which regulates the field of environment and the spatial
planning, the MESP has issued sub-laws so called Administrative Instructions (AI). The entire list of
subsidiary legislation adopted to date in Kosovo is in Annex 4 of this report.
In the medium-term period, it is foreseeable that the Kosovo administration will be confronted with even
larger challenges when the envisaged approximation to EU membership will require the transposition and
implementation of the whole environmental acquis without exception. Table 2. presents a summary of the
EC legislation by environmental sub-sector and shows the task represented by this challenge.
The comparable amount in Kosovo is 15 promulgated environmental laws and 66 issued by-laws. It does
not necessarily mean that Kosovo should approximate all this legislation in short-term. The purpose is to
demonstrate the volume of work and show where Kosovo is in respect to that.
Table 2. Summary of the EC legislation by environmental sub-sectors
Sector Directives Regulations Decisions Total
Horizontal 5 2 0 7
Air Quality 18 1 10 29
Waste Management 17 3 8 28
Water Protection 11 0 1 12
Nature Protection 4 6 1 11
Industrial Pollution Control and Risk
Management
6 2 7 15
Chemicals and Genetically Modified
Organisms
8 5 4 17
Noise 10 0 0 10
Nuclear Safety and Radiation Protection 5 3 0 8
Civil Protection 0 1 7 8
TOTAL 84 23 38 145
The respective departments do not have appropriate capacity in legislation. This workload can be solved
only with closed and well coordinated collaboration with the Legal Department.
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