The House of Peoples of the Parliament of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with 33 votes in favour, one abstention and no votes against, adopted the Law on Amendments to the Law on Electricity in the FBiH, which provides for a ban on the planning and construction of new small hydropower plants in the FBiH.
With these legal amendments, it is specified that the issuance of energy permits for small hydropower plants, except for those on gravity water mains, is suspended.
In the legal amendments, a small hydropower plant means a hydropower facility with an installed power of up to and including 10 MW.
The law leaves three years for investors who already have concession contracts to obtain other permits, such as a water permit, within that period, and if they fail to do so, they will not be able to obtain an energy permit.
This provision is stated because legally no law can be applied retroactively, as that would cause the legal security of the state to be lost.
This law is the result of a multi-year struggle of activists from all over Bosnia and Herzegovina who in their local communities fought against harmful projects and defended the rivers with their bodies, in order to unite in the Coalition for the Protection of the Rivers of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2016.
We remind you that on June 24th, 2020, the House of Representatives of the Parliament of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina adopted the Declaration on the Protection of Rivers and voted a conclusion on the complete ban on the construction of small hydropower plants (SHP) on the entire territory of the FBiH. With this conclusion, the FBiH Government was given a deadline of three months to perform an analysis and propose changes in the legislation that will enable the implementation of this ban in practice.
Half a year later, the Declaration on River Protection was adopted by the National Assembly of the Republic of Srpska, on February 17, 2021.
One year later, on February 10, 2022, the National Assembly of the Republic of Srpska adopted a new Law on Renewable Energy Sources, which introduces new ways of encouraging the production of energy from renewable sources, and enables citizens to produce renewable energy for their own needs.
In the process of public consultations on the Draft Law, the Center for the Environment and the members of the largest ecological network of organizations Eco BiH submitted remarks, suggestions and comments, a large part of which were taken into account and included in the final Proposal of this Law.This law abolished the incentives for small hydropower plants with a power of more than 150 kW, which is another result of the activities of activists.