FRIEDRICH-EBERT-STIFTUNG – INCLUSIVE ENERGY TRANSITION IN SOUTHEAST EUROPE used to new ways of working that use less fuel, and which could be applied even after the pandemic ends. On the other hand, the course of recovery from the crisis is ex­tremely important, and the EU has directed a significant amount of the recovery funds to climate goals. In addition to the pandemic, the participants also referred to the re­cent earthquakes in central Croatia, which they believe should be used as an opportunity for the systematic reno­vation of the housing stock, but also for changing trends, at least in buildings. Asked to single out a key step that would encourage the in­clusive transition, the stakeholders from Croatia agree that a necessary step is to improve the public administration ca­pacity, and above all, to build up the competencies of the Ministry of Economy and Sustainable Development. They see the lack of competent individuals at all government lev­els as one of the bigger problems. According to the interviewees, Croatia should also improve citizen participation in policy-making and decision-making processes. Four of our stakeholders agree that the energy transition should be of the highest state interest in which all political actors, regardless of party affiliation, should be in­volved. The staff capacity problem extends to the financial aspects of the inclusive energy transition. There are not enough experts in Croatia who can lead complex combined financed projects. The basis of financing should be private capital combined with money from EU funds. One inter­viewee stresses that environmentally and socially unaccept­able practices should be taxed. These resources should make up the funds to co-finance transition processes. Some of the interviewees believe that, apart from citizens, local authority units are not sufficiently involved in policy-making processes, especially for those documents that have far-reaching consequences for local authorities, such as the NECP, for which they agree that the adoption process could and should have been more inclusive. Some participants believe that civil society organisations should play a greater role in inclusive energy transition and that they are the ones who should be the leaders of trends, given that their strength comes from grassroots organising. This is seen in the example of the Možemo! platform, a par­liamentary party grown from such an initiative. Some stakeholders point out that the government and cer­tain institutions still do not recognise the expertise of civil society organisations. Ideally, one expert participant sug­gests, CSOs should be one step ahead of the governance structures monitoring developments in the EU, warning of deadlines and offering cooperation before the work on a document starts. In any case, civil associations should con­structively seek involvement in policy-making and deci­sion-making processes, and the government should re­spond positively. For the time being, this is limited to formal involvement in these processes, either by commenting on documents when they have already reached public consul­tation or through involvement in working groups that are too large to be constructive. According to most interviewees, Croatia is overly bureau­cratic and it is not easy to invest there. There have been several scandals, such as those with JANAF or the Krš­Pa đ ene wind farm. Investment criteria are not transparent, and according to one of the participants, it is shameful that there is no map of renewable energy sources that clearly shows which projects are to be implemented and at what pace. Another thinks that it is necessary to define‘no-go’ zones. It is not known what capital projects are worth in­vesting in. The state should also create de-risking mecha­nisms, because investments in new plants are otherwise unattractive. Energy poverty According to most of our interviewees, energy poverty is an important and very sensitive topic. They believe that it is not generally recognised and that it is still not dealt with by an­yone but NGOs. First of all, the right definition is needed, and then a systematic approach to solving energy poverty. The interviewees believe that the existing measures for co-financing energy bills for the category of vulnerable cus­tomers are not adequate and that it is necessary to invest in energy efficiency measures for housing. They emphasise that even the NECP does not provide analysis or clear meas­ures to tackle energy poverty. Employment One interviewee states that the NECP envisages 40,000 new green jobs by 2030 and 80,000 by 2050, including sec­ondary employment. Most interviewees point out the lack of systematic education for green occupations as the main problem. They believe that educational reform is necessary and the quality of educational programmes, especially voca­tional schools, should be raised. A trade union representa­tive says that economic migration is by no means related to transition. It worries her that workers are willing to emigrate for low-skilled jobs and do not want to invest in themselves in Croatia. In her opinion, investment opportunities certain­ly exist, and the Oil Industry Union is currently trying to es­tablish cooperation with the Croatian Employers’ Associa­tion to jointly apply for EU projects. One interviewee states that in the Croatian electricity utility, Hrvatska Elektroprivre­da(HEP), the retraining of engineering staff has been con­tinuously ongoing for several years and workers from the other departments are taking on jobs in renewable energy sources. 5. KOSOVO Awareness of inclusive energy transition The interviewees see the inclusive energy transition in Koso­vo as an opportunity to bring together different people from the parliament(especially the committee dealing with energy issues), civil society, academia and the private sector 68