The Union of Municipalities of Montenegro has submitted to the Ministry of Ecology, Sustainable Development and Development of the North its opinion on the Draft Law on Air Quality Protection.
It was suggested that the new law should prescribe the levels and types of air pollution under which the Government of Montenegro, upon the proposal of the Ministry or a local government authority, may introduce stricter protection measures, or that the law should authorize the Government to prescribe this.
The Union also considers that it is necessary to create legal preconditions for the direct engagement of the Center for Ecotoxicological Research, as the national reference laboratory, by local self-government units that decide to establish a local air monitoring network.
According to the Union’s assessment, owners or users of stationary sources of pollution should submit pollution data to the Environmental Protection Agency, rather than to a local self-government authority, as this would be contrary to the overarching Law on Environment, which stipulates that polluters are obliged to submit the necessary data to the Agency.
With regard to penal provisions, the suggestion is that penalties should be prescribed not only for legal entities and responsible persons within local self-government bodies, but also for responsible persons in state administration bodies, for holders of public authority, and for authorized legal entities.
One of the suggestions of the Union of Municipalities is also to more precisely regulate the process of public consultation in this area.
In addition to several other technical remarks, the Union recalled that, under the Law on Local Self-Government, all state administration bodies are obliged, in the process of preparing laws and other regulations and general acts governing the position, rights, and obligations of local self-government, to submit them in a timely manner to municipalities, or their association, for opinion.
