From the beginning of next year, exporters from Bosnia and Herzegovina will face a special CBAM tax for CO2 emissions at the borders of the European Union. Although sufficient, the domestic authorities have not used the deadline for adopting the necessary regulations. The introduction of the Emissions Trading System and the CO2 Emissions Monitoring, Reporting and Verification Plan is long overdue. This means that, barring a miracle, our exporters will pay the CBAM tax in full to the Brussels budget instead of to the budget of Bosnia and Herzegovina. In this way, by 2030, Bosnia and Herzegovina will lose about 1.3 billion marks.
The failure to adopt these strategic documents, along with exporters of cement, iron and aluminum, will hit electricity exporters the hardest.
“Without these two things, electricity producers do not even have certificates of origin of electricity and we are not interesting for purchase, which may result in the shutdown of a large number of power plants,” warns Almir Mujaković, president of the Association of Renewable Energy Producers.
True, at the last extraordinary session at the end of July, the Council of Ministers adopted the Draft Law on the Regulator, Transmission and Market of Electricity, which finally opens the door to the establishment of an electricity exchange in our country.
“But this is only the first step. In order to implement the ‘Emissions Trading System’ (ETS), the exchange must be established and must be integrated into the system of European exchanges,” explains Edhem Bičakčić, an energy expert and honorary president of the Paris-based CIGRA.
However, clean energy producers from micro-plants are also plagued by problems that should not exist. They point out that the Federal Operator for Renewable Energy Sources, despite its legal obligation, does not purchase electricity at guaranteed prices.
“The operator defends itself by arguing that there are no quotas for this. Many of us have also filed lawsuits, which we have won,” Mujaković points out.
The Operator responds that there is no legal basis for purchasing electricity from micro-plants at guaranteed prices, unless they have previously acquired the status of a privileged producer. But let’s get back to the European energy obligations that we have not fulfilled.
“If we had implemented this so far, taxes would have been paid on the production of ‘dirty’ energy, which emits CO2, but it would have gone into the budget of Bosnia and Herzegovina”, emphasizes Bičakčić.
In February this year, the RS government did not support the Roadmap for the establishment of CO2 trading and monitoring, which blocked the adoption of the state plan by the end of the year.
“We call on all decision-makers, institutions of Bosnia and Herzegovina, to take this problem extremely seriously and to establish a trading system, i.e. ETS, as soon as possible, and by the end of the year at the latest”, says Saća Prnjavorac, president of the UP Business Center Jelah-Tešanj.
“It is very depressing because it is not realistic to expect it. Maybe only at the end of next year, if we were to do well, which we are not doing,” says Bičakčić.
Do we still have a chance to fulfill the obligations that correspond to 16 EU directives, as well as the Reform Agenda for the Growth Plan, by the end of the year?
It seems that we do not, because the Ministry of Economy of the RS informed us that, together with the Government of the Federation and the Council of Ministers, they have sent a request to the EU to exempt Bosnia and Herzegovina from the application of the CBAM until 2030. This will hardly happen, and certainly not until 2030.
The Foreign Trade Chamber of Bosnia and Herzegovina warns that due to the failure to adopt the aforementioned regulations on paying the cross-border carbon tax, Bosnia and Herzegovina will lose 1.3 billion marks or one annual budget.
