environment
February 23, 2026
We Dare Not Imagine What Lies at the Bottom of the Danube, Sava, Drina, and Morava: The State of the Environment Reduced to Absurdity
What is more visible today than the European misstep embodied in explicit policy is the state of the environment in Serbia. This is an area where, compared to all others, Serbia lags the most.
TL;DR
- Serbia's EU accession policy appears to be a facade, with no significant progress visible for years.
- The state of the environment in Serbia is critically poor, lagging far behind EU member states.
- Widespread issues include scattered waste on public surfaces, numerous illegal landfills, and heavily polluted rivers like the Drina, Danube, Sava, and Morava.
- Air pollution, particularly PM particles, is a major concern, with even more dangerous organic pollutants unmeasured.
- Eastern Serbia is becoming a mining region dominated by Chinese companies, with environmental protection apparently a low priority.
- Hundreds of former Yugoslav factories have left behind hazardous, uncatalogued waste.
- Mountains are threatened by high-rise construction, and over 4 million illegal buildings are being legalized without proper infrastructure.
- Plans for a nuclear power plant raise concerns about safety and waste management in a country with questionable expertise and regulatory capacity.
- The Ministry of Environmental Protection appears ineffective, failing to address critical environmental problems despite having a budget.
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