Functional Review of the Ministry of Environment and Spatial Planning

environmental education / education for sustainable development 90 %
environmental legislation 63.4%
nature protection 80%
rural development 73.4%
sustainable development 70%
Environmental NGOs have intermediate levels of performance. However, they have a problem developing
activities which would better respond to or reflect the needs of the citizens. NGOs are often donor driven
and do not have the support of the government.
The Consultants’ opinion is that the departmental capacity to tackle these issues is highly
underdeveloped.
Recommendation III.6: An environmental communication strategy with the external bodies should be
developed and applied in the practice.
III.2 ENVIRONMENTAL INSPECTION DEPARTMENT
The new laws in environmental protection require both: environmental impact assessment (EIA) and
strategic environmental assessment (SEA) procedures. This would in principle involve early notification,
screening, public participation and access to information as well as to decision-making.
Environmental inspection and enforcement could be conducted pursuant to Art. 80 - 95 of the Law on
Environmental Protection [No. 2009/03 L-025]. However, procedural issues have not been addressed yet,
so inspection and enforcement of the legal provisions is not possible. Major deficiencies have been
identified at the Inspectorate for Environment and Water. There is a very low number of genuinely
professional environmental inspectors. There is a critical lack of respective legislation, applicable working
methodology, relevant environmental standards and proper co-ordination of their activities as well as
enforcement processes. There is no one accredited laboratory in Kosovo which covers the whole country.
This is due the obligatory downsizing of the ministry staff resulting in all regional offices being closed.
Modern enforcement concepts and standards, as envisaged by the promulgated primary legislation, are not
yet in use. The MESP inspectors neither use standard inspectoral procedures nor standards as inspection
parameters.
Recommendation III.7: Drafting of an environmental inspection bylaw and the necessary associated
instructions that provide the legal and regulatory framework for implementing inspection and enforcement
functions is a priority objective. MESP should enhance inspection, control and enforcement of legislation's
specific objectives to include the following:
Effective operation of the national inspection system;
Developing and implementing an environmental self-compliance and corporate environmental responsibility
system by the industries;
Implementation of the environmental settlement plans with industries;
Developing special inspection programmes for environmental compliance.
Regarding the experts opinion, the inspection and enforcement function creates the most serious difficulty
in the current environmental administration in Kosovo.This particular field of environmental administration
needs the highest priority to improve its performance. Any of routine process in environmental inspection,
i.e. inspection planning, compliance monitoring, documenting of inspection and eventual enforcement
process is not in practice in Kosovo. This is because: a) missing secondary legislation; b) insufficient
organization of Inspectorate; and c) lack of practical experience. A properly organized programme of
environmental inspections is one of the key success factors’ in environmental management.
Recommendation III.8: Implement a training programme in the environmental inspection and
enforcement using EU recognized trainers.
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