FRIEDRICH-EBERT-STIFTUNG – INCLUSIVE ENERGY TRANSITION IN SOUTHEAST EUROPE INCLUSIVE ENERGY TRANSITION JUST TRANSITION Until recently, the BiH authorities’ approach to the end of the coal era has been largely based on denial. With a raft of plans for new coal plants on the table, they have tried to fool workers and their wider communities that the industry still has many years left and that their jobs will be protected. This latter claim is particularly untenable given the extreme inefficiency of the mines in the Federation of BIH, which means the number of workers will anyway have to be re­duced in the coming years, irrespective of coal plant clo­sures. 93 Yet discussions about the EU’s initiative for coal regions in transition has raised the level of interest in this issue and raised hopes that funds may eventually be forthcoming to help with the process. Individual mayors, at least in the Fed­eration of BIH, have started to show initiative, with the May­or of Lukavac(Tuzla) signing onto a 2019 joint European mayor’s declaration on just transition, 94 and Lukavac, Živin­ice, Banovi ć i, Kakanj and Breza all signing up for an ex­change programme organised by the initiative. 95 Banovi ć i may have gone the furthest, by designing its own Green Agenda setting out a vision for the next ten years. 96 On the other hand, however, the experience from other parts of Europe shows that mayors and local people need to be assertive, as power utilities and central governments usu­ally want to lead the just transition process. Not surprisingly, they usually have different ideas and visions than local peo­ple about how the process should be carried out, what the local economy’s future will be, and what any available funds should be used for. Until recently utilities in BiH had not even mentioned just transition, but Elektroprivreda BiH held a roundtable on the topic in October 2021, 97 aimed mainly at showcasing its project on planting fast-growing willow to use for co-firing in its coal plants. ­applications for feed-in tariffs and made the payments. 98 At the same time, the incentives schemes so far have not of­fered subsidies for households to install photovoltaics, so households have to pay but could not benefit. 99 As a result, renewables support schemes are largely tainted, as far as the public is concerned. Although the previous schemes cannot be applied to new plants any more since the end of 2020, decision makers will have to be very care­ful with the design of their new schemes that are currently under development, in order to avoid a further public back­lash. Transition does offer opportunities as well though, as the Federation of BiH’s mines are clearly costing the public purse dearly. EUR 20.2 million were issued in direct subsidies in 2018 in BiH and EUR 22.71 million in 2019, most of which were for the Federation’s mines. 100 If decision makers were more decisive about moving away from coal, they could un­derline the senselessness of coal subsidies to the general public and gain support to use this money for other purpos­es. As mentioned above, BiH collects no data on energy pover­ty, but a survey carried out by the Centre for Ecology and Energy in 2018 in Zenica-Doboj Canton illustrates the prob­lems: some 38 per cent of households surveyed reported problems with damp walls; 28 per cent reported problems with draughts and with conserving energy; and 42 per cent of households do not heat the entire house or flat, but only one or two rooms. 18 per cent of households also reported struggling with electricity and heating bills. 101 Action is clearly needed to address all poverty, including energy pov­erty, but the country’s leaders are too busy with pursuing their own personal 102 and political interests to develop poli­cies that could help the most vulnerable. PROSUMERS HOUSEHOLDS AS ENERGY CONSUMERS AND TAXPAYERS Republika Srpska enables net metering for installations up to 50kW, but the issue of taxing self-generated electricity that is fed into the grid remains unsolved. The Federation of Similarly to others in the region, BiH’s renewable energy in­centives scheme based on feed-in tariffs lost its credibility by supporting environmentally-damaging small hydropower plants. In the Federation this was compounded by the opac­ity of the Operator za OIEiEK body which approved new 93 CEE Bankwatch Network, The Great Coal Jobs Fraud, 2018 update, June 2018. 94 Declaration of Mayors on just transition, September 2019. 95 Erna Jusufagi ć Begi ć ,‘Lukavac Banovi ć i i Živinice uklju č eni u proces Pravedne tranzicije za regije uglja’, Radio-televizija Tuzlanskog kan­tona, 9 October 2021. 96 CEE Bankwatch Network, Eight steps for a just transition in the Western Balkans. 97 Elektroprivreda BiH,‘Sa č uvati radna mjesta uposlenih u rudnicima imperativ energetske tranzicije JP EPBiH’, 29 October 2021. 98 Pippa Gallop,‘Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina: R­ enewables ­incentives chaos finally confirmed by auditors’, CEE Bankwatch ­ Network, 5 October 2021. 99 Klix.ba, Kakvi su uslovi za postavljanje solarnih panela u bh. doma­ć instvima: Nužne velike promjene, Klix.ba, 14 November 2021. 100 Damir Miljevi ć , Investments into the past: An analysis of Direct Sub­sidies to Coal and Lignite Electricity Production in the Energy Com­munity Contracting Parties 2018–2019, Energy Community, Decem­ber 2020. 101 Vanja Rizvi ć and Džemila Agi ć , Pregled situacije u pogledu energet­skog siromaštva u Zeni č ko-Dobojskom Kantonu – Analiza stanja ura đ ena na bazi 1000 doma ć instava na podru č ju Grada Zenice i Op ć ine Zavidovi ć i, Centar za ekologiju i energiju, March 2018. 102 Sometimes very literally – In December 2020 the Federal Prime Minis­ter, Fadil Novali ć , was arrested for conspiring to abuse office, a­ ccept rewards for trading influence, money laundering and document fraud in connection with the purchase of overpriced ventilators from China. Balkan Insight,‘Bosnia Federation PM Novalic Indicted in‘Res­pirators’ Case’, 4 December, 2020. 22