FRIEDRICH-EBERT-STIFTUNG – INCLUSIVE ENERGY TRANSITION IN SOUTHEAST EUROPE Serbia’s 2015 Energy Sector Development Strategy 297 and Implementation Programme for the period 2017 to 2023 298 are both extremely outdated now, so the National Energy and Climate Plan is much-needed. Preparation only started in 2021, yet the document is expected to be adopted in ear­ly 2022. INCLUSIVE ENERGY TRANSITION JUST TRANSITION Serbia has not yet set any coal phase-out date, although the Prime Minister signed onto the Green Agenda for the Western Balkans on Serbia’s behalf in November 2020, 299 and thus committed to decarbonisation by 2050. In reali­ty, the end of coal will almost certainly come much soon­er, as it is becoming less and less economic to operate in the EU, due to carbon pricing, competition from cheaper renewables and increasing cost due to pollution control standards. Even in Serbia, which does not yet apply carbon pricing and is breaching pollution control rules, 300 older plants will grad­ually have to close, while the Resavica mines have been struggling for years despite large public subsidies. 301 As a result of Serbia’s leadership refusing to name a coal phase-out date, the topic of just transition has barely start­ed to be raised, except by NGOs. A survey carried out in 2020 and 2021 in the town of Lazarevac near the Kolubara coal mining basin revealed that only 45 per cent of respond­ents claim to know what‘energy transition’ is, whereas 55 per cent do not. 302 Regarding‘just transition’, as many as 79 per cent of re­spondents admitted they did not know what it means, with only 21 per cent saying they knew. 303 This is symptomatic of the coal-phase out debate hardly having started yet. In the same survey, when asked whether the closure of the Kolubara coal power plant and phasing out coal is inevitable in the years or decades ahead, 57 per cent of the respond­ents said that it is impossible to avoid the plant’s closure and 297 Strategija razvoja energetike Republike Srbije do 2025. godine sa projekcijama do 2030. godine, Official Gazette of the Republic of Serbia, no. 101/2015, 8 December 2015. 298 Uredba o utvr đ ivanju Programa ostvarivanja Strategije razvoja en­ergetike Republike Srbije do 2025. godine sa projekcijama do 2030. godine za period od 2017. do 2023. godine, Official Gazette of the Republic of Serbia, no. 104/2017, 22 November 2017. 299 Government of the Republic of Serbia, EU integration important for prosperity, stability of Western Balkans, 10 November 2020. 300 CEE Bankwatch Network, Comply or Close. 301 Vladimir Spasi ć ,‘Resavica coal mines never break even despite mas­sive subsidies’, Balkan Green Energy News, 11 February 2021. 302 Maja Pupovac, A wake-up call for us all, Just Transition attitudes and perceptions in the coal-impacted Community of Lazarevac, Serbia, Climate Action Network Europe, June 2021. 303 Maja Pupovac, A wake-up call for us all, Just Transition attitudes and perceptions in the coal-impacted Community of Lazarevac, Serbia. the elimination of coal mining in the coming years or dec­ades. 23 per cent of respondents replied‘no’, while 20 per cent did not know. 304 Fifty-seven per cent may seem like a solid majority, but this still leaves over 40 per cent of people who either think the plant’s closure is not inevitable or do not know – a very high percentage considering the high level of political consensus on a coal phase-out at the EU and even global level. Also interesting were the answers to the question of who should be the main agent of just transition in the local com­munity: 62.5 per cent of respondents cited the state-owned Electric Power Industry(EPS), 59.8 per cent named the Laza­revac local authorities, and 47.3 per cent the Serbian gov­ernment. Educational institutions(27.7 per cent), trade un­ions(26.8 per cent), renewable energy investors(24.1 per cent) and the media(22.3 per cent) were also expected to fulfil this role. 305 Although the role of EPS is crucial, the just transition plan­ning process must be led by the local authorities, not the company, as the company has its own goals and role – it is not a community development organisation. It is therefore reassuring to see that the Lazarevac local authorities were also seen as a key player. Nevertheless, overall the survey is sobering as it portrays a community which has difficulty in trusting anyone and where many people(65 per cent) would move to another part of Serbia or abroad if they could. 306 In July 2021, it was reported that Serbia had set up a Decar­bonisation Council, 307 chaired by the Minister of Mining and Energy, with the Minister of Environmental Protection as vice chair. The members of the council are the Minister of Fi­nance, representatives of the Ministry of Economy, the Ser­bian Academy of Sciences and Arts, the Ministry of Labour, as well as members of the EPS trade union and trade unions of the Kostolac and Kolubara mine basins. It was also re­ported 308 that two civil society representatives would be se­lected but it is not clear if this has happened yet and if so, which sectors they represent. HOUSEHOLDS AS ENERGY CONSUMERS AND TAXPAYERS Like other countries in the region, Serbia’s feed-in tariff scheme attracted criticism for subsidising a large amount of 304 Maja Pupovac, A wake-up call for us all, Just Transition attitudes and perceptions in the coal-impacted Community of Lazarevac, Serbia. 305 Maja Pupovac, A wake-up call for us all, Just Transition attitudes and perceptions in the coal-impacted Community of Lazarevac, Serbia. 306 Maja Pupovac, A wake-up call for us all, Just Transition attitudes and perceptions in the coal-impacted Community of Lazarevac, Serbia. 307 Vladimir Spasi ć ,‘Serbian government sets up council for energy ­sector decarbonization’, Balkan Green Energy News, 14 July 2021, 308 Vladimir Spasi ć ,‘Serbian government sets up council for energy ­sector decarbonization’. 52