VIPOTNIK: FULLY PREPARED FOR NEXT ESPOO COMMITTEE’S SESSION

BANJA LUKA, AUGUST 1 /SRNA/ – The BiH delegation is fully prepared for the next session of the Implementation Committee of the Espoo Convention on September 1, when draft recommendations in the Trgovska Gora case will be submitted to BiH and Croatia for comment, Republika Srpska Minister of Spatial Planning, Construction and Ecology Bojan Vipotnik told SRNA.

"I expect that most of the recommendations will be addressed to Croatia, because at the session in Geneva we demonstrated shortcomings in its handling of the Trgovska Gora case," Vipotnik said.

He stressed that the delegation representing BiH will be ready to respond to the environmental impact assessment, with clear and well-founded arguments.

"I am confident that our evidence will force Croatia to abandon Trgovska Gora as the site for the construction of a nuclear facility," Vipotnik said.

He recalled that, following the exchange of arguments in Geneva, the position of international institutions had begun to shift, with considerably greater understanding now being shown for the views of Srpska and BiH.

"The exchange we had in May in Geneva with the Croatian delegation before the Implementation Committee of the Espoo Convention showed the international community and the public just how right we were when we spoke about Croatia's arrogant approach, as it has consistently ignored the clear messages and positions on this issue coming from Republika Srpska and BiH," Vipotnik said.

He added that the Croatian delegation arrived completely unprepared for the proceedings, unlike the BiH delegation, which fully exposed Croatia's attempts to disregard the views of BiH as the potentially affected country.

"Immediately upon returning from Geneva, we continued our activities by submitting petitions to the secretariats of the Aarhus, Bern, and Helsinki Conventions. The ministry initiated these petitions and is actively involved in gathering evidence for all three, while the formal applicants will come from other institutions, the non-governmental sector and, most importantly, with genuine support from the academic community," Vipotnik stressed.

He added that the ministry had received decisions from the academic councils of the Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics at the University of Banja Luka and the Faculty of Biotechnical Sciences at the University of Bihać approving their participation as co-applicants in filing a complaint with the Standing Committee of the Bern Convention.

"Alongside the institutional efforts and the engagement of the non-governmental sector, primarily the Green Team from Novi Grad, which is the leading civil society organisation in this case, the academic community provides particular strength to our arguments by supplying scientifically based evidence that the former JNA barracks at Čerkezovac fail to meet any of the criteria for the disposal of any type of waste, let alone hazardous waste," Vipotnik said.

He said that Croatia continues to maintain what he described as a dismissive attitude.

"The efforts of Republika Srpska and BiH to prevent Croatia from building a nuclear facility at Trgovska Gora, right on the border with Republika Srpska and BiH, are not only a priority but a generational challenge that has brought together a large number of institutions and individuals and transcends all the internal divisions that BiH faces," Vipotnik emphasized.

Croatia plans to store radioactive waste from the Krško Nuclear Power Plant, as well as existing institutional radioactive waste, at the Trgovska Gora site in the Municipality of Dvor, directly on the border with BiH.

In December last year, the Croatian Parliament passed the Law on the Construction of a Radioactive Waste Management Centre.