Introduction Most of the Western Balkans countries have not trans­posed the Habitats Directive yet and some have also not transposed the Water Framework Directive. All have trans­posed the EIA Directive to some extent but in 2021 the En­ergy Community opened dispute settlement cases against Serbia and North Macedonia for failing to adopt the 2014 amendments which clarified and improved the public par­ticipation provisions, among others. 22 Across the region, EIA and SEA provisions are often mis­interpreted in order to circumvent public participation provisions, or where public consultations are formally car­ried out, they have no impact on the final decisions tak­en. One of the most widespread examples is small hydro­power development. Many countries in the region set ca­pacity thresholds above which hydropower plants require environmental assessments, and this tends to be inter­preted to mean that those under the threshold are auto­matically exempt from EIAs. However, just because a plant is small, it does not mean it cannot have a serious impact, particularly cumulatively with other plants or oth­er activities on the river. And under the EIA Directive, no matter what size a hydropower plant is, it still needs to be screened. 23 Access to justice is a problem in all the countries covered by this study, due to lack of independence of the courts, lack of knowledge of environmental issues by the judici­ary, or high fees for the complainant if a case is lost. Although none of the countries are excelling in public par­ticipation in decision-making, there are still differences be­tween them. The following sections on specific countries give a brief overview of the energy transition overall in the countries, together with observations related to inclusion of the wider public in the process and recommendations on how they could make the transition more inclusive and ultimately more successful. EU POLICY FRAMEWORK FOR AN I­NCLUSIVE TRANSITION Gradual steps towards an EU energy transition – though not necessarily an inclusive one – have already been ongo­ing for over two decades, but have accelerated in recent years. In February 2015 the European Commission issued the so-called Energy Union Strategy, which claimed to put the public at its centre. ‘Most importantly, our vision is of an Energy Union with citizens at its core, where citizens take owner­ship of the energy transition, benefit from new tech­22 Energy Community, Energy Community, Secretariat initiates dispute settlement procedures against Moldova, North Macedonia and Ser­bia for lack of transposition of the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Directive 2014/52/EU, 24 June 2021. 23 Energy Community, Policy Guidelines on small hydropower projects in the Energy Community PG 02/2020, 17 September 2020, 23. nologies to reduce their bills, participate actively in the market, and where vulnerable consumers are pro­tected’. 24 A closer look, however, shows that the public is still mainly seen as an energy customer rather than as producers. Nev­ertheless, significant steps forward were made in the fol­lowing years with the adoption of the Clean Energy for all Europeans package. 25 The package intended to create a comprehensive policy framework to facilitate the transition from fossil fuels toward clean energy as well as to stimulate Member States to fulfil their Nationally Determined Contri­butions(NDCs) for reducing greenhouse gas emissions un­der the 2015 Paris Agreement. One of its pillars was to provide‘[m]ore rights for consum­ers: the new rules make it easier for individuals to produce, store or sell their own energy, and strengthen consumer rights with more transparency on bills, and greater choice flexibility’. 26 Through the Clean Energy for All Europeans package, the EU also introduced the concept of energy communities in its legislation. The new Directives enable active consumer par­ticipation as individual prosumers or through energy com­munities, and the latter can take any form of legal entity, e.g. a cooperative, partnership, non-profit organisation or small/medium-sized enterprise. Such legislative support should help to fill the legal gaps for such initiatives in southeast Europe and make becoming a prosumer or cooperative easier, even taking into account the delays and mis-transposition that are to be expected. The Clean Energy Package introduced targets for 2030, stip­ulating at least a 40 per cent domestic reduction in econo­my-wide greenhouse gas emissions as compared to 1990; a Union-level binding target of at least 32 per cent for the share of renewable energy consumed; and a Union-level headline target of at least 32.5 per cent for improving ener­gy efficiency, among others. Based on the Package’s Governance Regulation, 27 Member States had to develop and submit to the European Commis­sion integrated National Energy and Climate Plans(NECPs) 24 European Commission, Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee, the Committee of the Regions and the European Investment Bank, A Framework Strategy for a Resilient Energy Union with a Forward-Looking Climate Change Policy, EUR-Lex, 25 Febru­ary 2015. 25 European Commission,‘Clean energy for all Europeans package completed: good for consumers, good for growth and jobs, and good for the planet’, May 2019. 26 European Commission,‘Clean energy for all Europeans package completed: good for consumers, good for growth and jobs, and good for the planet’. 27 Regulation(EU) 2018/1999 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 December 2018 on the Governance of the Energy Union and Climate Action, EUR-Lex, Official Journal L 328, 1-86 (amended). 11