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Author: WeBalkans

Team Europe to support recovery of small businesses in North Macedonia

Written by WeBalkans on . Posted in News.

The European Investment Bank (EIB) – the EU’s lending arm – is providing €100 million in funds as immediate support for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to support a faster recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. The financing is part of the Team Europe initiative and the EIB’s financial recovery package to help the Western Balkans.

 

The scheme will be channelled through the Development Bank of North Macedonia JSC Skopje (DBNM) for businesses that operate in labour-intensive sectors such as manufacturing and services. The EIB loan will help SMEs and mid-caps maintain business continuity and sustain jobs, while increasing productivity and expanding their activities.

 

Lilyana Pavlova, EIB Vice-President responsible for the Western Balkans, said: “This loan testifies to our efforts to help the country’s transition to a stronger, more competitive and sustainable economy that is integrated in regional and EU markets. We are confident that we will further enhance our investment support for North Macedonia.”

 

The EU bank is one of the leading international financiers in the Western Balkans. As part of the Team Europe strategy, the EU’s global response to COVID-19, the EIB Group has rapidly mobilised €5.2 billion outside the European Union. For the Western Balkan countries specifically, the EIB has prepared an immediate support package of €1.7 billion, primarily for SMEs and the healthcare sector. The total EU financial support package for the Western Balkans amounts to more than €3.3 billion.

Anti-corruption public awareness event continues Western Balkans tour

Written by WeBalkans on . Posted in News.

Pristina was the next capital city in the Western Balkans to host a performance that raises awareness on the importance of whistleblowing in stopping corruption. Through a 24-hour “Whistle for the End” performance, the Regional Anti-Corruption Initiative (RAI) demonstrated to citizens how they can save money from corruption, by pressing a button – symbolically ‘blowing the whistle’.

 

Speaking at the event, Director of the Anti-Corruption Agency, Shaip Havolli, spoke about the cooperation with RAI in fighting the phenomenon of corruption, and noted the progress made in implementing the Law on Protection of Whistleblowers. “We call on all public officials who consider that they have noticed violations in their organisation to report such violations in cooperation with responsible officials and thus increase transparency and institutional and individual accountability,” Havolli said.

 

On behalf of the RAI, Project Manager Elmerina Ahmetaj Hrelja said: “We invite citizens to ‘Whistle for the End!’ by pressing the button and thus symbolically stop corruption and further destruction of their money. This gesture will show us how much money together we can save from destruction when we do not accept to participate in corruption.”

 

Whistle for the End! is part of the educational and information campaign that RAI is implementing with the financial support of the European Union, as part of the project “Breaking the Silence: Enhancing the Whistleblowing Policies and Culture in the Western Balkans and Moldova”.

Refugees receive keys to their new EU-funded homes in Serbia

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Sixty refugee families received keys to their new homes in Loznica, western Serbia, as part of the Regional Housing Programme (RHP). Funded mainly by the European Union, the RHP programme has been helping refugees who have been displaced for decades, since the ‘90s wars in the region. Earlier this year, the Programme handed over newly constructed houses to another 65 families who have moved in around Indija, Irig, Pancevo and Krusevac.

 

Speaking in the name of the families, refugee Natasa Topo thanked RHP Programme for their efforts and was relieved to be able to “settle down permanently”. Dirk Lorenz, Head of the Political Section at the European Union Delegation to Serbia congratulated the beneficiaries on their new homes, adding that the RHP was another key example of solidarity of the EU community with people in need in the Western Balkans. “The EU is a devoted partner to Serbia in providing durable solutions, and this event today is the result of both big efforts and the dedication of international and local partners. May this new life bring you all happiness and success,” he said.

The Western Balkans becomes a roaming free zone

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As of today, 1 July, citizens of Western Balkans will be using telecommunication services within the region without additional roaming costs. This landmark achievement, coined “Roam like at Home”, is a result of an agreement reached back in 2019 between Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia – and supported by the European Commission. It marks a stepping-stone in the digital transformation of the region and an opportunity to increase connectivity amongst citizens and businesses alike.

 

The first phase of the implementation, introduced on 1 July 2019, gradually reduced the roaming charges by over 80%, and has led to a significant increase in data traffic in the entire Western Balkan region.

 

The European Commission has fully supported this process, which was facilitated by the Regional Cooperation Council, with the assistance of the Body of European Regulators, BEREC.

 

Setting up a roaming free zone also marks a significant step of the Western Balkans in aligning with the EU Digital Single Market principles and practices. This will be further supported by the Common Regional Market, as agreed by the Western Balkan leaders during the Sofia Summit in November 2020. The next step will be the preparation of a roadmap for the reduction of roaming charges between the EU and the Western Balkans.

Western Balkans Youth Forum 2021 kicks off today!

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The Western Balkans Youth Forum 2021, a side event organised in the lead-up to the Western Balkans Berlin Process Summit, got underway today. The event brings together 80 young leaders and decision-makers from across the region and the European Union to discuss the challenges facing youth in the region and how to improve their position and lives.

 

In a welcome video message, German Chancellor Ms Angela Merkel pointed out that the youth exchanges is something that brings us closer together, that sows the seeds of understanding and trust between societies.

 

Acting Director-General of the European Commission’s Directorate General Neighbourhood and Enlargement Negotiations (DG NEAR), Mr Maciej Popowski, said that a better region starts with young people and that they should influence policies that shape their lives. He underlined that the Youth Forum is a perfect opportunity for young people to voice their needs and expectations and added that the European Union remains committed to the Western Balkans also through supporting youth, education and mobility.

 

A number of selected Young European Ambassadors – a creative network of future young game changers established in 2020 under the EU Regional Communication Programme for the Western Balkans – are taking part and co-chairing different working groups. Challenges and topics under discussion include Reconciliation & Peacebuilding, Volunteering, New Skills for Future, Sustainable Development, shifting “Brain Drain” to “Brain Gain”, and how to increase Youth Participation.

 

The Youth Forum is co-organised by Regional Youth Cooperation Office (RYCO) and German-French Youth Office (OFAJ) with the support of German Ministry of Foreign Affairs and co-funded by the European Union. The event continues on 4-5 July. At the end of the Forum, young leaders will develop a Regional Youth Agenda (RYA) to present to the Western Balkans Summit of Leaders.

The pandemic reshapes TAIEX and Twinning

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The sudden standstill of international activities in spring 2020 required a thorough redesigning of the European Commission’s institution building instruments TAIEX and Twinning.  
TAIEX and Twinning support partners’ public administrations in the approximation, application and enforcement of EU legislation and the sharing of EU best practice. Requests for assistance are matched with expertise in EU public administrations to facilitate peer-to-peer learning between civil servants from the EU and partner countries. The halt of international travel and physical meetings in March 2020 posed an enormous challenge to the work of the institution building community. It required the redesigning of exchanges in digital format.  
The transition of TAIEX into a virtual instrument enabled continued support to EU partners and their citizens worldwide throughout the pandemic in critical areas such as health and cybersecurity. So far, over 12,000 participants and 2,000 experts have taken part in virtual TAIEX. Online tools have also played an essential role in Twinning, where additional flexibility was introduced to facilitate remote implementation of ongoing projects.  
While face-to-face interaction remains important for peer exchanges, combining the best elements from traditional physical and innovative digital practices will make TAIEX and Twinning more accessible and resilient to future disruptions. In fact, TAIEX events in 2020 had on average 24% more attendees and 21% more experts than in 2019.  
This year is also the 25th anniversary of the TAIEX instrument. Today, TAIEX continues to support the candidate countries in their reforms and is also available to other partners worldwide and the EU Member States.

Pristine for Pristina! Safe water supply for years to come

Written by WeBalkans on . Posted in Stories.

From scarce to steady: how one EU-backed project saved Kosovo’s capital from water shortages. Musa Hasani has been working as a phone operator at the regional water distribution company in Pristina for over three decades. His job is seemingly simple: he answers phone calls from clients and passes on complaints to the relevant sections at the water company. However, around the year 2000, this simple job became hectic and stressful.  Musa remembers taking over 200 calls a day, most of which were non-stop customer complaints about water shortages. After the war in 1999, Kosovo’s capital, Pristina, faced an enormous migration of people from elsewhere in Kosovo. A public utility infrastructure that was planned for less than 150,000 inhabitants now had to cope with a population of over 300,000 people. Over the next decade, water cuts could last for over ten hours a day in any Pristina neighbourhood. “People were furious, as this had a considerable impact on their quality of life. They reflected this anger on the phone to us,” Musa remembers.

“In March 2014, Badovc Lake had only enough water to last for one more month and Batllava for two. If we had not had a period of heavy rains in April, Pristina and the surrounding municipalities would have literally been without drinking water.”

A tale of two lakes

Sokol Xhafa is the Director of the Pristina Regional Water Company. He remembers that back in 2010 the company started some interventions that improved the situation to some degree. But there was a need for a long-term solution. Back then, the only sources of water distribution were two artificial reservoirs near Pristina – Lakes Batllava and Badovc. The amount of water in these lakes depends on the rainfall. And with climate change having affected the lakes water levels, supply could strongly fluctuate from excessive water accumulation to drought levels. In 2014, Kosovars lived through the worst water shortage in three decades. “In March 2014, Badovc Lake had only enough water to last for one more month and Batllava for two. If we had not had a period of heavy rains in April, Pristina and the surrounding municipalities would have literally been without drinking water,” says Xhafa. However, the situation changed for the better with the support of the €35 million Pristina Regional Water Supply project, including a grant of €5 million from the EU. Thanks to this investment and funding, channelled through the Western Balkans Investment Framework, the project saved Pristina from water shortage problems for years to come and ensured a reliable water supply for the surrounding region. The project involved the development of a new water source from Gazivoda Lake. The infrastructure enables water to be channelled from the Ibër Channel to the newly-built water treatment plant in Shkabaj. The new plant consists of a laboratory, an operation room and offices, with workshop and social rooms.

“If we had not had the new factory, we would have had to have announced an emergency, and Pristina and the surrounding municipalities would have been facing days with 12 hours without water on a regular basis over the past two years.”

About the project Pristina Regional Water Supply project benefitted from a combined investment of grants and loans channelled through the Western Balkans Investment Framework (WBIF). This included €5 million in grant support from the European Union, a €20 million loan from the KfW Development Bank on behalf of the German Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development, and a €10 million contribution from the regional water company. About the WBIF The Western Balkans Investment Framework (WBIF) is a donor coordination platform that pools funds from various sources, including the European Commission. The WBIF provides financing and technical assistance to strategic investments in the energy , environment, social, transport, and digital infrastructure sectors. It also supports private sector development initiatives.  It is a joint initiative of the EU, financial institutions, bilateral donors and the governments of the Western Balkans. “2019 and 2020 were the years with the longest drought season for some time. If we had not had the new factory, we would have had to have announced an emergency, and Pristina and the surrounding municipalities would have been facing up to 12 hours a day without water on a regular basis,” says Sokol Xhafa.  

Cost-efficient and steady supply

Water is drawn from the natural source and channelled through an open gravity pipeline to a station where it is pumped to the water plant to be treated, processed, and filtered. The Shkabaj water plant has a capacity of 700 l/s: enough to secure a cost-efficient and continuous water supply to the municipalities of Pristina, Obilic, Fushë Kosova, Gracanica and Podujeva. Musa Hasani has certainly noticed the difference made by this project, with greater customer satisfaction and quality of life for the residents of Pristina and its region – and fewer angry phone calls for him to manage. The new infrastructure has also brought technological advances which enable the authorities to monitor the water levels of Badovc and Batllava Lakes, therefore ensuring the sustainability of the region’s water resources.

EU-backed Green for Growth invests in wind farm in North Macedonia

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The Green for Growth Fund (GGF) has made its first ever equity investment in wind farms by deciding to fund the construction and operations of a 36MW installation in Bogoslovec, North Macedonia. GGF’s €3.5 million investment will be joining BNB Kompani D.O.O., a holding company for energy projects in North Macedonia who is the majority shareholder.

 

The Bogoslovec project is directly aligned with GGF’s sustainable investment objectives, while simultaneously supporting the country’s broader climate transitions and renewable energy targets. The project will directly contribute to the implementation of North Macedonia’s Renewable Energy Action Plan, which aims to reach a 50% share of renewable energy in electricity production by 2024.

 

North Macedonia relies predominantly on coal and lignite. Although the appetite for renewable energy sources has grown in recent years, a transition to a more diversified renewable energy mix predominantly centres on hydroelectric power, which represents 37% of total installed capacity and 90% of renewable capacity.

 

Once complete, Bogoslovec will not only double the country’s existing wind capacity, but given it is the first independently owned wind farm in the country, it will also serve as a beacon for privately owned utility scale renewable energy. The project is expected to generate enough green electricity to supply over 20,000 households, resulting in 80,000 tons of avoided CO2 emissions annually, with operations due to begin in mid-2023.

 

Background

GGF invests in measures designed to cut energy use and CO2 emissions, and improve resource efficiency. It was initiated as a public-private partnership in December 2009 by Germany’s KfW Development Bank and the European Investment Bank, with financial support from the European Commission, the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and the Austrian Development Bank.

EU adds Western Balkans countries on its “Green List”

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Albania, North Macedonia and Serbia are now included on the list of countries whose citizens can travel to the EU for non-essential purposes. Under an updated  recommendation of the Council of the EU, Member States can now decide to lift travel restrictions to citizens of these countries on the condition that the person has been fully immunised – i.e. if they have received the second vaccine dose at least two weeks before the travel.

 

Citizens eligible to travel have to prove that their immunisation was achieved via vaccines approved by the European Medical Agency – currently, Biontech/Pfizer, Astra Zeneca, Moderna or Johnson & Johnson.

 

Member States are solely responsible for any gradual lifting or reintroduction of restrictions from a non-EU country as EU Council recommendations are non-binding. The full list of conditions for entry into each EU Member State is regularly updated on the Reopen EU website.

EU Awards for Investigative Journalism presented in Montenegro

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The winning reports of the EU Awards for Investigative Journalism were unveiled at a ceremony on 15 June held in the Montenegrin capital, Podgorica. The awards recognise the best investigative stories published in 2020 in Montenegro. Winners tackled a range of issues ranging from the Azeri ruling family’s shady involvement in a resort to mafia gang warfare – and how the son of a fugitive former president made a fortune in Serbia.

 

First prize went to journalists Biljana Matijasevic and Alisa Hajdarpasic for their story ‘Portonovi is Owned by the Daughter of the President of Azerbaijan’, published by Centre for Investigative Journalism in Montenegro. Second prize was awarded to Svetlana Djokić of TV Vijesti for the ‘Way of Revenge’ series, while Dejan Milovac from MANS received a special research award for the ‘Dossier Carevic: All the President’s People’ investigation. The Balkan Investigative Reporting Network’s (BIRN) investigation into the controversial business dealings of Milos Marović, son of Montenegrin fugitive ex-president Svetozar Marović, picked up third prize.

 

The EU Awards for Investigative Journalism in Montenegro are part of an ongoing EU-funded project Strengthening Quality News and Independent Journalism in the Western Balkans and Turkey. The aim of the project is to empower and support independent journalism and investigative journalists.