 Good morning, everyone. Good morning. You can hear me well. I don't know if we should start or wait for a couple of minutes. Participants are still joining in. And Mr. Pateruga is also on the project. Yes, he was in charge of the biodiversity webinar. I worked with him when we had a project with Finland. He's still at the faculty. Yes. Good morning. We should start. Thank you, Senka. Good morning, everyone. Before everything, let me welcome our guests from Croatia and Poland, who are panelists today. Our webinar is entitled the sustainable resource management policies and practices in the member states. So far, 54 participants joined us and we hope that there will be more. I welcome all the participants at the webinar. I am Mihaila Marković. I am professor at the agricultural faculty of the University in Baniluoka, and I am covering sciences related to land. I'm together with Sanda Mejic-Gurtagic. She is from mechanical engineering faculty in Sarajevo. She is also saying hello. And Sanda has a weak internet connection today. And the signal is weak. She will be with us, but I will be moderating most of our activities. Before we start, I would like to share one presentation with you with a summary of our previous work and what we are doing, actually, with regards to nature of resources within the development of ESAB 2030+. I hope you can see my slide, colleagues. As I already said, this is the title of today's webinar. And before I hand over to the panelists, I would like to inform you that the project ESAB 2030+. ESAB is a response to the Embassy of Sweden in Bosnia and Herzegovina to the request for assistance in the development of the strategy and action plan for the environment for Bosnia and Herzegovina as a country. Including strategies and action plans, which was filed to the Swedish Embassy from all levels of the government. This will be the strategy and action plan for all the levels of the government and Bosnia and Herzegovina included. And it is the acronym we use ESAB 2030+, because it will cover the period until 2030 and beyond the strategy, as I said, will be developed for Bosnia and Herzegovina, national strategy, federation, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Republic of Slovakia and the Bershko district. As you can see on this slide, the development of the strategy was entrusted to the Stockholm Institute, Environment Institute, SEI, we call it. And the adoption of this document will provide the responsibility institution across the levels of the government with a very, with a crucial tool for to achieve sustainability of environment, so management and enhance health and well-being of all the generations, not current generation and future generation. The project started officially in 2019 and should be finished in April 2022, by the adoption of the strategies at all levels of the government, both with entities, Bershko district and the national strategy. The development of the strategy ESAB 2030+, is based on a so-called participatory approach. It is the approach which invites all the stakeholders to provide their input, which will be taken into account. As you can see different colors, I stressed the term argumented input and opinion. We have received various opinions so far, various stakeholders provided their opinions without arguments. And the project team agreed and concluded that every opinion that we will take into account needs to be well-argumented. The participants of the working group has played a role in the decision-making process. So far we had two rounds of working group meetings and in late March 2021, so this month we will resume our activities with the third round of the meetings and later on in September and October there will be the fourth round. On the left-hand side of this slide you see the structure of the working group and what they cover, water, waste, biodiversity and nature conservation, air quality, climate change and energy, chemical safety and noise, sustainable management of nature of resources. This is the sixth working group and that's us, including forests, other wood products, hunted games, land, fish fund, mineral resources and on the right-hand side you see the resources that are covered and the seventh working group is the environmental management. So far, as I said, we had two rounds of the meetings for all the levels of the government. Working groups identified key challenges for all the nature of resources and all the levels of the government. Previously we focused on several challenges and my colleague and Sanda agreed that we have given that we have six resources, we didn't want to list all the challenges that we identified in all with regard to all these resources. So you can have this information from another website which I will provide to you. Now we are developing the action plan for the strategy which will be developed and detailed in several sessions of working groups and public hearings. So our panelists today are Ms. Andrea Pavlovich from the Republic of Croatia, Mr. Sjepan Posovic from the Forestry Faculty of the University in Zagreb, the Republic of Croatia, Ms. Eva Krol and Mr. Mikhail Fritz from Poland and Mr. Alexander Sparv also from Poland. And may I use this opportunity to invite all the participants to register to work in one of the working groups which I showed on one of my slides. You can do so using these email addresses which I listed on the slide. And for e-sub email and our e-mails with this, I will finish my presentation and now I will invite our guests from the EU countries discussing today's topic. Every panelist has 20 minutes. We've seen that some of them have more than 20 slides but I would kindly ask you to stick to the timeline. All the participants in today's webinar will be provided with your presentation. So I will kindly ask the panelists to try to stick to the time a lot assigned to them. So we will have time for question and answer sessions. I see now that we have 89 participants on the bottom of the screen to the right hand side of the raised hand. We have an icon Q&A and this is where you should ask your questions while the panelists are presenting, you can easily type your questions in this Q&A box. Perhaps you could also indicate for whom the question is or if you don't know, you can at least indicate the area to which the question pertains. That would be all from my side and now I would like to give the floor to Miss Andrej Pavlovich. Andrej Pavlovich is head of the Nature Protection and Landscape Architecture Department at OICON, leading a team of over 20 people. She has more than 20 years experience in strategic communications and public affairs. She has extensive knowledge and experience in the energy sector, environmental protection, waste management, energy efficiency, and also she participates in the participation and stakeholder engagement in environmental decision making. She has profound knowledge of EU environmental policies and legislation and problems and risks related to their enforcement in practice. She specializes in sustainable development and environmental communication. That's briefly about the background of our colleague Andrej Pavlovich from OICON and now I hand over to Andrej. She has 20 minutes for her presentation. Andrej, you have the floor. Good morning everyone. I extend my greetings to all the participants as far as I can see we already have 22 participants. I would like to introduce me and your introduction and the presentation of Mr. Sjepan prompted me to stress one important point and I hope you can see my presentation. This is my nearly 20 years experience. I am expert in communication, however, given my involvement in various projects, primarily in energy, I specialize in communication and engagement of public in the decision making process in environmental decisions. Mihailo, you mentioned argumented opinion. It is difficult to obtain such opinions. I should stress this and also colleague Posovac made two crucial points regarding development of nature, insufficient engagement of stakeholders, and that's something I covered in detail in developing different programs for stakeholder engagement and I think I have a lot to say about this topic. Regarding the management of forest and participation of public in the management of forest, this shows the creation reality what you see on the slide. Andrej, if you could just zoom the presentation. Not yet. On the right hand side you have an icon which you can use to provide the full screen. It is on the full screen on my laptop. I switch to different screen. I apologize, Ms. Andrej, if you could try to exit the screen first and then try to do it again. I am on the slide show so I don't understand why this is happening. I apologize we are losing time but we want the participants to see clearly what you show on your side. On the right bottom corner, I clicked every time on the slide show. Is it better? Okay, you can continue this way. It's not larger now but okay. It's okay now. This is just a screenshot showing the creation reality. I could give you some examples from waste management. This is the way how the public actually illustrated the method of management of Medvednica. The non-governmental organization in this case, the green core, they protested in front of the city and wanted to draw their attention to the way of management of Medvednica. This is the way to sensitize the public in one way or another. The creation forest company has denied these allegations but this is one of the typical situation in Croatia in relation to the interest of the public in individual questions that pertain to the method of management of the nature in Croatia, which I would like to say Einstein said that one of the crucial problem is that we are trying to solve problems in the same way of thinking that caused the problems. That's bad news but the good news is that in practice this does not work. We are all confident and when I prepared for this presentation, Amar sent a thinking that helped me create this slide. We are all convinced of something. The nature has different segments and everyone is confident that their own positions and opinions are the only truth that our convictions use are based on real true data. Then we can come to the point of argument to discussion because if someone engages into discussion without arguments, they are still confident that their arguments are good. We need to take this into account. What is particularly important, we all believe that we understand the whole of the problem. I had this problem too and I fought to convince myself differently. This is one example that is used very often in the management of nature is the type of management. Each of these six blind men is touching the elephant and is convinced that they are this elephant. No one can understand that they only can see one portion, one section of the reality and very often we can hardly accept that we are also a part of problem. Then we start in pointing fingers and blaming others and that is something you can very often face in the management of nature. But I agree and we are all part of the system. We lack common thinking. What changed when Croatia became a new member, what we were missing, where the sustainable development goes. This is something that obviously was signed by all countries of the world in 2015. It was adopted, they were adopted at the assembly and all the member countries adopted that including Bosnia, Herzegovina and Croatia and they adopted 17 sustainable development goals which I'm deeply convinced helped to view the whole. This was recognized by the EU as well and this is the moment when all the policy strategies, program documents are building up not only on the sustainable development goals but also the Paris Agreement. Everything that's being done and what's being thinking because this is a project 20 plus is in view of a perspective. What are we going to achieve by 2030? Are we going to achieve all of these goals? And what is very important is that it's not only 17 sustainable development goals but 169 sub goals because within each of the goals there is a certain number of sub goals plus 232 indicators that measure the achievement of goals and sub goals. Why is this important? Why is this connected opinion thinking? It's exceptionally important today. We didn't discuss it in detail in Croatia but you can learn from us and you can learn from everything that happened in the meantime which is that the intervention in one goal or sub goal also impacts the achievement of other goals just as it makes the achievement impossible. So we are looking for a connected opinion and taking into account the whole, viewing the whole as such. What I always say in many of my presentations, I apologize, I've moved to a further slide, is that the most important trends, the expectations are huge and they're growing. Everyone is on Google, people get information on Google and they believe that as they have access to Google and certain studies and way of thinking, they become experts and that's why often what's missing is the argumented discussion. More and more the public is expected and asked to actively participate and impact decisions concerning environment and their immediate interests as well as new standards of practice that's also expected. What we have on the other hand in practice is something that doesn't really support the expectations which is that there's huge mistrust in the competent institutions because they do not make their capacities ready for the current times quickly enough. And as Professor Posov had said already, the traditional approach to the decision making process like we've decided we've published something and then we will defend it. And then when we see that our defense of our arguments is not very good. No, but it's not very simple because no one was prepared for that. Naturally we will also always group ourselves with those with whom we share our opinions and attitudes, and we will not be prone to listening to those whose attitudes are different. Another thing that I often saw in practice is that the resistance is growing. So each side has its increasing resistance to bringing closer various positions and arguments and this is what requires a special skill. Another thing that happened I worked a lot with on projects. For example, the Zagreb in the banner of wasting Zagreb and one perceptive was that this project should be renewed. Since 1986, attempts have been made to make a lasting solution, but this has not been further supported. Also, science is boiled down to only one opinion. So scientists have only one opinion and they have difficulties facing the fact I had a professor, a PhD who participated in a public discussion. She was presenting one study and she said at one point to the participants who were rather adversely who who adversely took her project. She said you can't talk to me like that science became only just one of the opinions. So, and science is not being taken into account as it should be. Then people, and then this leads to problems in practice. And so, again, the Google experts are huge problem everybody thinks they're experts in everything. Another important thing is the social media who significantly changed the way people communicate and view things and comment things also what happens online is the current judgment thumb up or thumb down. Usually, often the media simplify and dramatize information for example you've seen the example on my initial slide and there's a whole number range of other slides that show that demonstrate how the media simplify and dramatize information. The decision making in matters on in my environmental protection is a process, which includes adoption of regulations planning strategic planning resources management planning accreditation of industrial plants. But this is only one aspect of the decision making process on environmental issues and other important one is the participation of the public. And decision making isn't simply. Okay, we've reached a decision. We've decided to make a decision we've reached it. We've defended it. There are also some other people affected by that decision is it a problem or an opportunity what is the context of making such a decision who are the decision makers. What I've forgotten is that the decision makers are people people humans with them mind maps with their way of thinking with their restrictions that can certainly affect their decision making process and that decision making process can be authoritative or participative The net income countries very much nurture the participative way of thinking and the you also opted for that type of decision making however that type of decision making in the EU member countries or the countries aspiring to be members becomes a problem because we are not used to the participative way of decision making and this causes huge problems in practice that democracy needs to be learned dialogue is needs to be learned and it's not also the time of publishing a project or decision the supports are different the various theories tools. And so you all have the presentation so I will not get too much into details on this table but take a look at the levels of decision making involved in deciding on environmental issues so that you can see this is not a one dimension problem. It has several layers on different aspects that are needed in planning strategic documents in decision making all these need to be taken into account. What I mostly worked on was the was the Arhus Convention, which is exceptionally important. It put in a framework the environmental democracy that focuses on active participation and democratic cooperation of all members of the society in making decisions on environment. So whatever I said earlier shows that this is huge business we are Arhus Convention has set up three basic pillars. So any country. We've we've ratified this convention, and we have had huge problems with this implementation in practice so include it includes three aspects of first right to access to information. So that's the transparency that the meaning that the public authorities need to be transparent in decision making the second is participation in the decision making process and the third aspect which is the least developed in practice is access to to judicial right to access to justice in Croatia we have huge problems mainly singled out by the NGOs when it comes to implementation of the Arhus Convention. So the most important problems, the number one problem is the silence of administration so they keep quiet today think that the problem will go away, then denying insight into study and information on experts who are hired, leaving out information on immediate hazards to human health and environment covering up of analysis, right to participation in decision making the problems they are circumventing the duty to include public particularly highlighted was the case of the center. For waste management, and it this case specific specifically pertains to resources management then shortening deadline for deadlines for participation of public in drafting of laws and bylaws that deadline in Croatia is 30 days. Objections post forward by the NGOs and the media is that public presentations are organized when people are at annual leave and also narrow interpretation of the definition interested public so who is the public and who is the interesting public so who are those who are directly concerned by a an infrastructural project or instruction of some building and a huge problem, which is really tiresome when you receive 400 500 comments or objections during a public discussion for example, I worked in the waste management on the waste management plan for the city of Zagreb and we had around 500 pages of comments and I insisted that every comment or opinion be replied to, or to say whether it was taken into account partly taken into account and if it was not taken into account why, because that's also important to tell people why the comment or proposal was not taken into consideration. And as for the group of problems right to access to justice, this is a problem not only in Croatia so these are long and expensive procedures and this judgment specifically referring to the provisions of our whose convention are rare. What I advocate as strategic approach is something that happens between the two extremes between the strong impact and the weak impact. And under the strong impact we're thinking about problems as being surmountable and on the in the weak impact. We see them as insurmountable because the problem is so complicated that no matter how hard we try. We won't solve it some problems have been dragging on in Croatia for years policy has clear goals and it will have a strong impact but if it's going to have unclear goals obviously it's impact will be weak. If the laws are adequate the same thing strong impact if they're inadequate. It's not only a matter of approximation transposition of legislation. It's more a matter of capacities, although there's been a lot of training on this topic in Croatia. To which extent are the competent authorities ready to absorb the application of legislation in reality it's a challenge transposition is also a challenge approximation is also a challenge but the simple reason that obviously some things need to be directly transposed some can be adapted but with the adaptation one needs to know how to think and if the implementers are active obviously the impact will be strong if they're passive or if they're waiting for the problems to solve themselves. Then, then they will simply pile up. What are the traps of this strategic approach so focus on the mass media and one way communication many people believe that they will solve everything through the media so they give an interview. And get some media space that they will solve problems they will not the problems will not be solved that way. And another thing where many institutions. Make a mistake is the production of brochures replants and other material the strategic approach also needs to take into account the fact that distribution of informative material may increase the knowledge. However, it does not necessarily have to result in any change in behavior. So the fact that something wanted to be disseminated as an information I've heard often in my throughout my career. People saying you just need to inform them and it'll be solved. I've had some really emotional and awkward public discussions where I had to explain what happened to me and because I as an expert for public relations had to go way much much beyond my narrow area of expertise to to be able to explain to others what's going on to take into countries resistance conflict way of thinking why people thinking certain way. Why they enter discussions without any arguments. I have to explain lots of things to myself as well in order to be able to understand what happened to me. I definitely want to say is that information is not a motive for changing behavior in knowledge will not change anybody's behavior. However, lack of knowledge is certainly an obstacle to a changing behavior. And there is a specific area that we need to take into account there, but I would also like to warn about is that one of the misconceptions is that we are rational. We often have emotions context and decision making takes place completely different from the imagined theoretical model and what we often see in practice is that the decision makers seek a good enough approach. They usually don't want to leave their comfort zone, and then they do not look for the best possible approach that would require them to leave their comfort comfort zone in that not all alternatives always known in the decision making process they're not given equal importance. And what's particularly important not all of their consequences are taken into account. And the positions of people, people's opinions are a result of years of rational objective analysis there primarily the result of years of paying attention to information, which confirm what they believe people selectively seeking information that will confirm their convictions on matters of environment protection this is particularly important what is important. It's important what people think but not how they think that's another misconception, this apprehensions do not happen because the public has too little information. The solution is not to give them more information there has to be something more to it. So this is a phenomenon known as the, the information deficit model it's important to understand that when we preparing participation of public it's important to understand what people think. And I apologize for interrupting you. I'm done. Yes, you should be aware of the time we need to leave some time for questions and answers. Yes, yes, I understand. And my conclusion is that any communication is good communication. No, that's not true. And this is another thing that we need to take into account. And this is basically my last slide. The question on environmental issues needs to be focused on a shared vision of sustainable future and capacity building of various groups for addressing and preventing environmental issues, and not on information dissemination and short term knowledge enrichment. This is the last thought I wanted to share with the participants and I find it important. Thank you. May I thank our colleague Andrea Pavlovich for drawing our attention to the problems that the Croatia has faced and the challenges and the important fact. This comes to the decision making process. The decision making, which should seek to improve the situation in sustainable resource management and public policies and practices. I once again say we have now 115 participants and I invite all of you to use the Q&A box on the bottom of the screen. So that's intended for your questions and if possible, if you could indicate to whom the question is intended. Thank you Andrea. Have a little rest and now I suggest that we invite Mr. Posavets and before he starts, I would like to briefly inform you of his professional background. Mr. Posavets is engaged in scientific activities of forestry economics and methods and models to determine forest values, forestry marketing, research of specific and business analysis of forestry economics, and improvement of forestry companies business. In 2001 at the forestry faculty of the University of Zagreb he defended his master thesis entitled evaluation methodology for assessment of the value of forest in 2004. And another MA at the faculty of economics of the University of Zagreb he defended his master thesis entitled specifics of business analysis in the management of renewable resources forest and PhD in 2005 dynamic models of determining the value of forest. He has PhD in Biotechnical Sciences Discipline Forestry as we already said he has huge experience in forest management and forest land management and approximation to EU regulations. Now I give the floor to our colleague Stefan Posavets. Thank you very much for this introduction. Now I will share my screen with you. Well, I suppose you can see the screen and you can hear me well. Yes, everything is okay. We have limited time so I will not discuss at length or in detail or the slides just for the beginning when we discussed my professional background. I am a professor and I'm teaching at the faculty at the course urban forestry and since 1995 I worked on foreign trade and then after that at the Ministry of Agriculture on some World Bank funded projects were renewal of forest and when I came to the faculty. I had good experience in practice so I have a very good picture how everything looks like in practice rather than only at academic level. Sustainable management in Croatia and the alignment with the EU are key is today's topic. As I participated in various activities in the past period related to forests, including the project IFI, Forest Policy Economics. We created the master program. I also participated in some aspects of establishment of Natura 2000 areas. Then we had cost capable regional project. We wrote a paper on FCS principles and I was in the group at the Ministry of Forestry which covered these topics. So you will hear my idea and my perception of these problems. I intended to discuss the forest management back in 18th century at that time Vienna, the plans were made in Vienna and our stakeholders implemented the plans. My colleagues, a lot of papers were written about these problems. The idea of sustainable forest management has been pursued for many years but as my colleagues said, bad news sell the newspaper and without the communication with the public, we are losing the strength we need to find the solution. As for the, we established 1991 when Croatia became independent country, the public company, the forests of Croatia, the law was adopted, the law on forests and then the public company forests became the limited liability company. They were only managing the forests, they were not owners of the forest so they opened up space for some other companies that were founded in later stage. We still have a huge share of state public forests and that determines the formation of prices and the relations with wood processing companies are different. This slide shows the basis for management across the country since 1990. We have 2,700 hectares of the surface of the forest. They grew by 700,000 and we believe that there are 700,000 owners of private forests. We have a lot of small, lots and small, but that's not the situation only in Croatia. It is the same across the former Yugoslavia. Just information about the annual cut, 7,300,000 in private, around 1,000,000 hectares and some institutions such as municipalities or military polygons own 3% of forests. As for the private ownership, we were trying back then to manage forests in a sustainable way based on the forest districts. We have our forests in Slavonia, Lika, Gorski, Kota, Dalmatia. After 90s, when we speak about the transition, already then the organization changed and the creation forest company was formed. This is the slide showing the situation in the creation forest. We have supervisory board directorate, but it is interesting to refer to these new sectors that came up in the meantime. We have sector for green energy, we have department for investments in green energy within this service, and we have had some 10 successful projects which involved huge amounts of funds. And I should say that they have been pursuing this rather seriously and that a lot of projects for fire protection, reforestation and so on were implemented in the meantime. As for the business operation, it is still a public department with multiple employment. In 2019, they earned several 100,000 kunas, but of course the state expects them to earn more and pay more into the state budget. As to the private forest, I listed several points. The law on forests from 2005 made organized forestry and forest advisory service. Before that, it was forestry and water management. After that, it became the forest advisory service for a certain period of time. It was an independent institution, but then again it joined the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry. It is now a directorate for development of forestry and fish farming. Previously, everything was under the control of the forest company, public forest company, but today private forest owners have more obligations. It's not only the benefits they enjoy, there are funds for co-financing of projects for general benefits of the forest. There are multiple opportunities for extra earnings and some people took an interest in this. As for the legal framework, it changed dramatically since 1992 and I listed only several laws which are relevant for our area, the law on nature protection, law on forest protection and other laws which were adopted in order to meet the requirements of the EU or in order to align with some of the EU directives. The last amendment was adopted in 1990 in the law on forests with regard to sustainable management and the general and economic functions of the forest. In 2005, fund European criteria and indicators of sustainable management have been included, although as to my knowledge, they have not been fully implemented. This means it is not a problem to amend the law or to publish the law in our official gazette, the problem always comes with the implementation because this requires extra funds and extra time. Also, in 2003, we developed national forest policy and strategy as this was required by the professional program. We needed to create a forest program, the Ministry planned this and that was one of the requirements of the law on forest. This program has not been adopted yet. The only national forest policy strategy was adopted in 2003. In the meantime, several institutions were established and some of them were closed and again the practical implementation is a problem. The implementation of Natura 2000. I mentioned this in one paper that we prepared for this regional review. It is the fact that Slovenia, Croatia, Bulgaria and Slovakia have most raised share of Natura 2000 and then the question was why we want to cover everything with Natura and to protect such a large area within the context of Natura, but some national parks is expanded and the new legislative procedures also started to cover this ecological network which turned into Natura 2000 and this is an overview of all national laws which were adopted but were not implemented in specific countries. So I will not discuss this in detail but this reflects clearly the problems of the nature conservation, protected areas, national forest programs and so on. The national forest program was not adopted in Croatia although it had been envisaged. This is a very good overview. We prepared it for one of the papers. The national forest program with protected areas. Everyone seeks to protect as much area as possible but then they don't know who will pay in the circumstances of the pandemic when we don't have visitors and which we've funded by the entrance fees. They cannot fund their salaries or the management and we have now an extra problem. Then again top down approach the policy seeks to increase the protected areas and then the stakeholders feel in danger. They are not involved, they don't know what is going on and then again you have a problem. As for FSC, this is a well known story, the certification process, the Croatian forest received the certificates for nearly the entire area of over 2 million hectares. And now we initiated the procedure of FSC certification of private forests. For this you need a new supervisory body and you need to have framework for management of these areas. Of course the companies need to improve their business operations but they also need to include in the process various NGOs which will identify illegal logging or certain other problems. We have some briars from Austria and Italy also were interested in this certification process so as to enable further expert to their countries. Again, I should say that the majority of respondents said that forest management was regulated previously that we did not change anything in the meantime. And sustainability, the certificate regulates health, safety, issues, engagement of stakeholders, waste disposal and protection of the value of forest regarding EUTR. These problems are well known, the EU forest law, enforcement, governance and trade, this is the action plan and you need to sign different agreements to have your wood and timber certified and licensed. We had discussions before we identified all importers and producers in order to reduce the illegal market. As I said, we had to align our legislation and the major problem was the environmental protection and the national program for different elements of policies. The major problem also was with a licensing of owners of the forest and the restitution problem was also involved. We wanted to increase the size of the forest owned by individual owners. Regarding the application or directives on habitats and birds. The question was how to fit forest management plants with the E Natura 2000 management, this required multidisciplinary approach in some cases. And our managers and responsible persons were not aware and did not have proper knowledge of this. We had to go into forest to recognize different birds, different types of species of plants and we have another problem with the EUTR Ministry of Interior and Customs. We had to be trained in order to know when they stop a truck loaded with logs, what they should look for, what they should ask. In 2013 we have planned various strategies and in 2015 we discussed how we can apply the principles of sustainable management. The Ministry of Agriculture in Croatia defines the objectives of the sector and this takes time. But then the signatory parts of the Paris Agreement and EU also have a saying in these last two slides. The EU legislation is incorporated in our applicable legislation, the major significant changes in the organization of forestry took place after independence in 1990s. And the application of Natura and EUTR and climate adaptation are the major principles that EU insists on and we need to adapt our management to these principles. The creation of forests and other communities and companies must also have an opportunity to obtain funds from EU for construction of forest roads and so on and they use this. Thank you very much. I hope I fit into the time a lot to me. Thank you very much and we can. Thank you Mr. Posavets for the presentation. I see that we have questions being asked in the Q&A section. And according to our agenda we should now be have a break since it which has been planned to last until quarter past 10 but since we've already gone over the designated time I suggest we take a break do not leave the zoom session. I will see you again and at quarter past 10 and those who have questions in their mind can also write their questions in the Q&A section of the screen. So, I will see you all back again at quarter past 10 please do not leave the session. Thank you. Hi, my name is Alexander Spar. I just want to check in and make sure you can hear me. Yes, we can hear you very well. Great. Thank you very much. Do you want to check your camera as well? Yes, I switched in. I see myself. You can't see me right? Just let me check please. Yes, I can see you now. Oh, great. Thank you very much. We are back. It's quarter past 10. Are you all there? Yes. I hope you managed to rest a little. We've got several questions in our Q&A section. The first question, perhaps we should start. Sorry, I'm missing one question from Mr. Taruka. Greetings, Mr. Posavets. He said congratulations and he said that he had to leave. Thank you for the question and I answered. I apologize. Mr. Mihal Moraz, you have to go to the answers section of the Q&A. During the break, I did not take my coffee break, but I worked. I answered some of the questions. The question was who financed it? I thought that it was all through the agency for environment protection or the Ministry of Environment, which coordinated the process and engaged all the stakeholders. There were a lot of disputes. The proposal was that it should be in the protected areas so that the Khirvatsky Shumek can manage those areas to have as few problems as possible, then everybody realized that this was not possible then. And so the network was expanded to parts of some protected areas or regions in Croatia, even extended to encompass private forests. For compensation, there is a proposal submitted to the Ministry and we also did some papers, reviews, 100-200 euros per hectare annually would be the compensation measure, depending obviously on the quantity, type of protection and so on. So that's the answer for Mr. Mataruga. Ms. Emina Kadrić has asked me concerning the benefits of private forest owners. Well, they are allowed access to the market. That's the main thing because nowadays the Somils also purchase their assortments. And I guess this is often mixed with the assortments from the state forests which are certified. And the idea is that they have to be all the documents proving traceability so that everybody knows the chain of custody where the goods came from, who felt the trees, so that there is traceability. And the PFC is being planned for private forests. What's interesting is that there is a certificate for side forest products and Mr. Bogovic, for example, exports acorn, which in Croatia may cost maybe one euro and they sell it for five or six euros abroad because the forest is certified. The certificate allows for a better price and better quality. That would be that. Then there was one question for me by Mrs. Anya Dragimirovich concerning the assessment of forest value. I didn't want to write about that in details, but the law of forests provides a methodology for assessment of forest value. And it explains the system of points. I don't know if this method is good or bad. It's a matter of discussion, but this is a methodology in our law and obviously the national parks have the highest value and bring the highest benefits and they are separate from the management by the Hrvatske Šome company and they're financed in other ways. So Hrvatske Šome company allocate funds for the community, some 10 to 20% of fee for assortments. So if the Hrvatske Šome company destroys some area or a road, then some of the benefit is returned back through the sale of assortments and it's not treated as any cost. It's more of an assessment of the actual value. That's that. I don't know if there were, there was one question for me also. If I was supposed to have a presentation, Stjepan and I will answer that. One colleague, Mr. Kushan, cancelled his attendance. He was supposed to speak more about the gracious experience on land management. So the agricultural part, I can't say anything about that. Yes, yes, I understand. We do apologize to the participants for this. The presentation was dropped from the webinar at the very last moment. Vladimir Kushan contacted Mr. Amar because he had to go on a trip urgently and that's why the presentation was taken off the agenda. However, all the questions also pertaining to that topic, we will ask Mr. Kushan to answer and we will submit, we will send his answers to the participants on the emails. I'm sorry about this confusion. So Mr. Stjepan, as far as I can see answered all the questions that were posed to him. Other questions were mostly posed as far as I can see to Mrs. Andrea Pavlovich. So, if Andrea is online, would you please join us? Good morning. Yes, I'm online. I've already answered one question concerning the tips and tricks that can help with public discussions. So I already answered that public discussions differ depending on the type, but what I can say in general, and more precisely through one paper, those who are interested can read about it. It's very important to get prepared well to know who is supposed to participate in the public discussion, which positions and interests they're presenting, and it's very important to recognize there's interest. During all of my projects, for example, I participated as a communication expert on implementation of the project, at the LNG terminal in the Republic of Croatia, and what turned out what was the initial analysis was actually the analysis of all the stakeholders who were relevant for the construction of the LNG terminal, which was not built because all the investors from Germany, France and Austria withdrew. So, but now we have the energy shipping Croatia. So this initial analysis was a type of directive for the organization direction for all the organization of public inclusion events it was done well for the simple reason that it allowed us for very streamlined focus which is very important in communication but also allowed for flexibility which is also necessary because initially you cannot foresee everything but you can prepare yourself in advance. As the situation is developing, you also adapt to it, depending on the impulses coming from the public assessments whether an NGO will react to this or that this is all very important to have everything sorted in your head. What turned out to be a good rule to me in practice concerning public discussions was that I always set very clear rules that we then stick stuck to during all public discussions and they allowed for the people to gain trust in this impartial process that it takes into account all the positions, all the participants, whether their positions be argumented or not for more. On this I would certainly refer not only to the Argus convention but the European Union made another step forward and prepared guidelines from Maastricht which speak about the involvement of public how to involve public. I've analyzed those guidelines in one of my papers and if anybody is interested I can send this paper of mine. Another question for me was asked by colleague Amar Czalsiewicz. We met in Zagreb concerning climate change and he asked me how the resources management evolved in Croatia after we joined the EU. I cannot speak about the forests. I have to apologize on behalf of my colleague Professor Vladokusian. There was a misunderstanding with the dates and he had to leave urgently so I apologize on his behalf that he was not able to attend but we will gladly open answer all questions. How much did the situation improve? Well, hardly. I can give you a fresh example that particularly from waste management in 2004 we adopted a strategy prepared by foreign experts and in this document they wrote that waste management is a problem which everybody considers should be solved by somebody else. So current situation in waste management after Croatia joined the EU is that we still in a way on the same track that it's a problem that somebody else should solve by the end of 2021. First we were supposed to have almost 20 waste management centres and then the number has been reduced to 11 throughout the years but I've already presented the example of the Zagreb waste management centre. Since 1986 they've been trying to systematically solve the waste management issue in Zagreb and still we do not have this solution. What we see in general in practice is that there's a lot of finger pointing at others. There are a lot of conviction that somebody's position is correct and the approximation of the strategy and policy believe me does not mean much if they're not implemented in practice. And I think this is the biggest problem because it's not only enough to approximate things, it's also necessary to politely cross-reference with the participative way of thinking with the techniques for solving problems, the ways other things, these are all things that other people can learn in practice. I also learned them and I keep implementing them in my daily life. Communication problems are problems of misunderstandings but they're also lasting problems if they prevent reaching solutions. Thank you, Andrea, for this exhaustive answer. To all questions, there was also a comment by Mr Predich. It wasn't really a question but rather a comment concerning the methodology and presentation. He praised the presentation and I see one more question for Mr Posavets from Maria. What is the experience of Croatia as an EU member in the decision-making process concerning the forestry issues? Is it a two-way communication or Croatia simply has the duty to accept some of these experiences from the EU? Thank you for this question. All of our problems and alignment is done by the Ministry of Agriculture which has its section that then through the representatives of Croatia in the European Commission and the Parliament can then communicate and formulate these issues. If you know that the main issue, that the main problem of the Ministry of Agriculture are the incentives in agriculture and agriculture in general, food production, the forestry has maybe 10 or 20% of share in it. So it's not a strategically important issue in Europe, let alone in Croatia, although we are managing more than 2 million hectares and 43% of Croatia is under forests and forest land. So there is communication through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Agriculture. And like I said, most of those strategies are voted for in the European Parliament, adopted in the European Parliament and were too small when you take a look at Germany or France, Scandinavian countries. Forestry contributes to the GDP only by 2% whereas the issues, whereas for example in Scandinavian countries where forestry is really has a major share in the GDP and then they have the stronger voice. Thank you, Stepan. I see from Alexandra Nicolić more of a comment and an invitation to Mrs. Andrea for further communication concerning her presentation. I didn't see any other questions. My colleague Amar asked a question, something about forest quotas. Well, does it mean for the wood processing industry? That's the case, if that's what he means, then a Croatian company. Again, I'm speaking from the position of the Croatian company as a holder of the monopoly. But it has impact on the forming of prices. I'm not happy with it. It's not yet the real structure of the prices and the demand and offer as it should be. There's no market for forest but there are special contracts made with woodcutters. It's for several years. It's one of the problems. Slovenia has a better solution for this and they function better. As soon as we talk about the administration of some quotas that doesn't make good market and well-formed market prices. So in practice there's certainly room for improvement but this is the decision of the politics and then the wood processes who are private people and the Croatian Schumann have to meet all the obligations from the contracts and then this makes the whole issue more complex. But this is certainly a matter of policy. I can agree with my colleague Posovac and some of the issues that have been taking place concerning these quotas in the Croatian Chamber of Commerce. It has always been a huge political problem. I believe we'll all agree on that. As soon as you have politics involved then you don't have the market and then it's something completely different. Then the easiest thing is simply to fill the wood, make boards, export it to Italy and then we all nicely buy an Atuzzi kitchen made in Italy which is usually costly and we basically were buying back our wood. Yes, there were also complaints by wood processors concerning the quotas and so on. Thank you. I don't see any more questions. So I would like to use the opportunity to thank Mrs. Andrea Paolović and Mr. Stjepan Posovac for their presentations and for the answers they provided. In my experience in previous webinars, particularly with colleagues from Croatia since you've been through and you've already announced that and touched upon in your presentations, you've been through the various problems concerning the approximation and joining the other panelists on other webinars said that they were at our disposal if we need to address them on any other matters subsequently because it's not impossible to think of all the things one wants to ask in a webinar that doesn't last that long. I think you too are also available for any questions or some sort of assistance. In the meantime, we got another question for Andrea. Why do you have problems with the regional waste management center in Zagreb, Editha, but the church is asking why do we have this problem. What was the selection of the location because the center is supposed to be in a narrow area in the extension of the Zagreb water filters so there were also issues with the ownership and the environmental impact. There was a huge issue and that's the biggest issue was the resistance of the public for the center to be located where it was intended to be because that was not the original location the previous location was simply taken off the agenda by the decision of the late mayor. There were lots of demands and different ideas what it should look like, what technology should be used and I participated in the discussions concerning the waste management plan that for so and incinerator which caused a huge reactions in the public because of citizens of Zagreb particularly of the area the eastern part of Zagreb where the center was supposed to be who said that they didn't want to have the incinerator. This was the segmentation of technology because according to all the modern standards that's not a technology that's not a problematic technology they were issued they were there was mention of the oxen and food and even though it would be a good approach to long term waste management and then another question was why next to the water filter because from the water filtration there's also this sludge remains that is simply laying around and that's 500,000 tons of sludge containing heavy metals that you cannot simply just set aside some way but the public in a way, not only the public, but constantly trying to appease the public. There was this lack of ability to cut something to make decisions you don't only have to take into account different opinions you also have to make cuts at some point simply based on the available information you may have to make a decision. And why there is this unreadiness to make decisions and this has been a problem for years. That's why the resources management is so difficult because my colleague for example worked on a research concerning water management which ever area you take you will unfortunately face problems there and there was another proposal in 2018 for the waste management center with MBO that also wasn't considered as good and then all of a sudden I want to bring a public discussion there where there was another focal problem because somebody wanted to make a compost plant. And I forgot to mention that the elections in Croatia have a huge impact on any issue and this is like a principle of connected vessels implement or not or delay something whatever. We have another question for Mr. Stjepan did and in which way Croatia the stimulated export of cut timber because cut logs. The stimulation was reduced to restrictions imposed on companies to produce products of higher final value if it's just a family company with which does not produce final products just cut timber. They will have lower incentives lower quotas and those bigger companies will be allocated to higher quotas. But the problem is again with implementation of control whether those who produce furniture receive higher quotas and the major earnings is obtained if you just cut wood cut logs and export them. The question is to which extent they comply with the requirements of the agreements but the point is that those who produce final products will obtain higher quotas. That's only in principle. Thank you very much. I think we brought to an end this first part of our webinar. Mary once again thank these and their Pavlovich and Stjepan Posavets for their excellent presentations the participants will receive your presentations and they can do so through the local partner. And their representatives Senka Gulenović and the data per beta which they can continue asking question or through my my email address or Sundance email. You can forward any questions that you may have Mr. Dragan Chomich came up with a question I can answer the Ministry of Environment is handling the CO2 emissions. There is a trade of emissions in EU we are still not engaged in that although we are assigned the CO2 protocol that is done at the level of the Ministry of Environment. I don't know if OICON was involved in these processes. OICON is doing this within the impact environmental impact studies. I have been in OICON since mid next last year I came from the business sector and I was responsible for monitoring of the preparation of sustainability reports. I also recently adopted the regulation on taxonomy it is of major importance because it is a screening process and it set criteria for funding of projects so it is necessary to review whether a company asking for a loan meets the environmental criteria. They defined six objectives of environmental protection which were the framework for formation of taxonomy and this will be the criteria to measure whether one business one industry is sustainable including forestry energy and so the first two objectives are the operationalization of the practice and mitigation adaptation and they will operationalize this through a special implementation act and this will have a huge impact on the flow of capital in the EU. All the frameworks within the 27 Financial Fund will include this review and again what we faced before 2013 although we have made huge efforts and we waited for quite long to become a member state but that framework was nothing compared to the present one because the EU defined in detail its policies on sustainable management and contribution to the sustainable management. Of course we should also mention the Green Deal that also relies heavily on the sustainable management objectives. This is the first time that they said clearly how important the environment is and a lot will depend on these criteria in the area of climate change, biodiversity, resource conservation. The whole cycle will be completed at the same time I'm the president of the community for socially responsible business and we are preparing documents for taxonomy and because it is crucial for the business operation. Thank you both. I think we exhausted the discussion on the first topic. If you are in a position please stay with us. I thank you very much for your exhaustive answers. Senka said that all the questions will be copied and the answers that were provided in writing and they will be sent to all the participants and we will ask Mr Vladimir to answer the questions asked to him. Now we will start with the second part of this webinar. This is the experience from Poland. Now I invite our colleagues from Poland. I have another webinar at 12 o'clock and I have another webinar too so I will have to leave you. Okay, we'll stay in touch. Let's start with the second part of the webinar. As I said the experience from Poland, sustainable management practices, we have two presentations. The first one is transformation of the coal sector in Poland, Alexander Spar, he is a head of the climate and energy team at the Polish economy Institute, he has over 15 years of experience in the Polish public administration and in think tank organizations. Alexander is co-author of applications related to climate and energy transition, particularly focusing on energy mix, coal mining and energy poverty. He graduated in political science from the Cardinal Stefan Wisinski University, I'm not certain how to read this in the College of Europe in Warsaw and may I ask Alexander to share his presentation with us or Senka will do so and Alexander will speak. Mr Alexander, do you hear us? Yes, I can hear you, can you hear me? Yes. It's fine, we can hear you. Great, so I will go to my presentations. First of all, thank you very much for inviting me. It's a really pleasure to participate in your very interesting project as I hear from the first session. I was asked today to present a few thoughts on the transformation of the Polish coal sector under the EU influence, so basically how the coal sector in Poland evolved over time focusing on last decade. And in order to do so, I will go next slide please. I will go through three points that I prepared. First of all, just to prove the case that Poland is a relevant country to speak about coal sector and coal based energy system. I will give you a few slides and then I would go also briefly through on the one hand side, impact of coal and on the second hand also on the relevant regulations that tackle different issues related with coal impact. And thirdly, which will be the core of my presentation, I will give you three case studies on the different ways how different projects are going or went under this EU influence. Of course the three projects relates to coal sector. So let me go to the next slide. As you can see the electricity production in Poland is basically based on coal. So only recently say around 2008, 2010 and the electricity mix started to differentiate a bit with biomass, gas and wind turbines. It's becoming more diversified, although it's still based on coal. The same goes for instance for primary energy. If you look at the mix of primary energy, this is almost half of the mix also based on coal. Now, on the next slide, you can see that which is marked here, there are seven regions out of 16 Polish regions where the coal mining or lignite mining takes place. And the two key regions are Śląskie, Silesia, which is known in Europe because this is the most coal intensive region in Europe. Where the majority of Polish hard coal production takes place. And the second region, which is Włódzkie, Włódź, in this region majority of lignite is produced. Now, if we go to the next slide about the impact of hard coal and lignite mining. What we typically hear and know is that the main impacts are air pollution, water pollution and GIG emissions. However, other impacts are more and more prominent in a sense that along with the development of civil society. We see that other problems related to coal sector also plays a role, especially in the local communities in regions where awareness of environmental impacts and other impacts, as well as self confidence of civil society is growing. And so the pressure from the civil society is growing too, so it stops to be a top-down pressure, but it also starts to be a bottom-up pressure to make the coal and lignite mining more sustainable. In the next slide, you may see some of the main EU legislations impacting coal and lignite mining. So, of course, this first thing I would mention is the renewable targets for the EU, which are narrowing the energy market for coal more and more. So, for instance, for Poland, the target currently for 2020 was 15%, whereas for 2030, it's, I guess, 23%. So, as you see, the scope for other energy sources, including coal-based energy sources, is narrowing down. And, of course, another important instrument, EU Instruments, is famous, EU ETS, which with subsequent reforms also led to a reduction of the permits on the market. Firstly, with set-aside measures, it was only to the temporary, but then with market stability reserve, it's become permanent removal of certain amount of permits. And this shows that the mechanism, initially economic mechanism, is quite fragile in a sense, quite, let's say, open for impact of politicians' politics. And so, not only, it acts not only based on economic laws, but also under the pressure of certain EU member states. And there's only one direction to make it more painful for the coal, of course, other fossil fuels as well, and to lead to a greater and faster reduction of the emissions. There are several acts, as for instance, Natura 2000, which was mentioned earlier. Also, I think there was mention about, well, best available technologies, this is maybe one thing I should mention also to, which is important. And this is decision-based on industrial emission directive. So this is the third important act. And this will be part of my case, which I'm going to talk about later. So there are also medium combustion plants, and there is water framework directive, which was also part of the case, which I'm going to talk about later on. So going to the first case study in the next slide. This is a case of a hardcore power plant that was meant to be built, and the initial plan was adopted in 2008. Then after four years, it was cancelled, but the idea of that power plant returned two years later, and sorry, four years later, so in 2016. And for two years, this project was back on stage, including actual beginning of construction works. So what happened was that based on something which is called shareholder activism, so let's say free access to data, financial data, especially financial data of a company. And a report was provided by one of the Polish think tanks, which proved under quite scrupulous methodological assumptions, different assumptions in different scenarios that this construction wouldn't be profitable at almost any scenario. So what happened was that the project was terminated, and the losses were the losses. So the investments which were made until 2018 were around one billion, sorry, one billion Polish water, which is a quarter million euro around, and the process was stopped. And the second case scenario on the next slide is a different story, so not going back from a project, but planets change. This relates to a private lignite mine and electricity power plant company, which under the pressure of among the others, the industrial regulation directive, the industrial emission directive, was forced to first shut down the oldest power plants than one of the coal mines, the lignite mines. And now we're struggling with the decision to about the remaining mine and two power plants. So regardless of when and how the remaining coal assets will be shut down, the companies began already a process of altering the portfolio of energy production by using all accessible means, renewables, that is solar, wind, and also hydrogen production based on biomass. And the company is active in the coal regions group within the commission, by the commission, and actively seeks to collect, to propose projects that would be able to attract the money from just for instance just transition funds. And this is a case which I look, obviously this is, we don't know the results, how the company will go through the process because this is for a decade or longer. And the company and the region, because this is also what is part of a story that this company is the main employer in the region and the main source of income. So, so the story of the whole transition, regional transition is, is not yet known. But from the beginning, it seems that the process is conducted reasonably. It has every chance to succeed. And now the, the, this company and the region can rely also on several government governmental programs. That is, there are two of them, which I would draw your attention to my electricity and clean air. These are both programs financed by the government and both aims to reduce the use of, so to say, reduce the use of coal in households and to move towards lower use of energy. So the energy efficiency measures and increasing the use of distributed renewables. So, so, and this is how, how the, how the government supports the idea of transition in the, in the regions. Now the, the last case is to roof that is called a lignite mine in southern western Poland on the border with close to the border with Czech, Czechia and Germany. So this is the case, although, although the company itself PGE the owner of the two roof. And to roof itself as a mine were regarded as most profitable companies and looking at their reserves was quite promising in a sense that they're, they were planning to sustain the, their activity until at least 2040. The new obstacle seems to be on the horizon that is the conflict with Czech Republic with Czechia, where the government decided to, to begin a case against against Poland. Based on the problems with groundwater with air pollution and noise pollution. And obviously this is the case is very fresh so it was just brought to the court of justice of the European Union. But it seems that whatever the result will be the, the case may constitute an obstacle for the whole company PGE. The last, just one remark aside from the main topic is that Polish. What is important to know about Poland now is that Polish government is conducting currently negotiations with Polish trade unions about the phase out of call and the final date which was very which is very new idea. As previously all the previous governments were just trying to postpone the idea to to phase out the call completely, but very recently, I think this breakthrough consists on the fact that less and less stakeholders. Contradict the idea of total phase out of call. So, so the negotiations are ongoing and what is happening is that there is a business idea of probably as in Bosnia, the and Herzegovina the power sector is almost entirely state owned. The idea now to move from call sector. For instance, to avoid the costs related with unclean, let's say dirty assets and to collect the financial resources to for new investments. To separate the assets, or to sell the call assets and move them to another separate company, just to make the energy companies free from at least call and league night assets. I think this will be the case also in the future for oil and gas sector. So, so the idea is that total and they'll have to, for instance, which you've been, you may know also as as this is the largest league night power plant in Europe. These companies would also hard core companies as well, would go would move to one companies, one umbrella company that would deal with the call and league night phase out. So, going to the conclusions. I think there that we have quite historical moment right now as I, as I watch, and I observe the energy sector for at least 15 years. I think this is quite a breakthrough. So we have, maybe this year, we counted will have a consensus broad consensus on phase or total phase out of call. Of course, this will not happen overnight. This will be a process, maybe for one or two decades, maybe even three, although I think it will be quicker than we officially can say. And so this is quite important thing that happened in Poland and just, just again, one remark. A few years ago, I was speaking with a professor from cause Western cause from Western Macedonia from Cosania University about call sector in Greece and in Poland and he told me in five years you will see that something which is unacceptable and unthinkable for a majority of stakeholders, total phase out of call will be a fact. And so far it seems he he he was a he was a good prophet on that. So, so this is just probably would be one of the messages from me to you that, although you, you may think Lignite and call is immortal. I think the impact of the EU is very strong and the, and the corridor to maneuver between different with Colin Lignite based electricity system is is very, is very short. It's unsafe, let's say. So, based on three cases I presented, I think you may you may think of the Lignite and call phase out as as it may happen in hard way or in easy way. It can be the case of Ostrohenko, which would be forced abandoning of ongoing projects. You may think otherwise about the process as voluntary transition and it has, of course, you can, there's one idea economic idea you can run to death with the with the existing infrastructure but you can also prevent certain processes and invest in advance to gain the, the market, competitive competitiveness, and finally, there is one way struggle to sustain the current mining activity, which is, I would say also sub optimal from the point of view of companies. Main reasons as I mentioned in the EU ETS different accept different directives. And we we use in Poland, at least certain policies for smoothing the the process and for many reasons which I can explain maybe in Q&A. This is thermal retrofitting which not only reduces the energy consumption in households but also offers good jobs for the people leaving the mining sector and this is quite interesting idea. Also, promotion of distributed renewables in households this is another option for policy for public policies. Long term planning, of course, is always advisable open consultations with increasingly powerful civil society organizations and availability of relevant data, meaning that the certain data circulation of certain in public offers reduces, for instance, the political pressures, which for Polish school sector, turn out to be over the last 30 years turn out to be problematic. So this is something we fight for still and and we hope to. We have some success success, but I think this open policy about the data is quite quite a good tool to implement. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Alexander for for this presentation. We have his contact details on screen and the participants will also get all the presentations. We are a bit behind the schedule. With the presentation, but since Bosnia has quite a few minds on various types, various types of coal, and the new of the fact that we have thermo electric power plants, which generate a lot of energy in Bosnia and in Bosnia, we found this presentation interesting and thank you, our colleague for locating Mr sport and bringing us and bringing him to this webinar. I also met. I'm sure we will stay in touch after this webinar as well to be able to learn from the Polish experience. And now we have a presentation by Mrs. Eva Kroll and Mr. Michael Fritz. These are their brief biographies. This is Eva Kroll was involved has been involved in international programs and projects. Mostly taking a place in lower Silesia and since 2017. She has been the leader of the remix project smart and green. She has been running energies in the EU. You have in your agenda the brief biography from Mr Fritz I will not read it now since the miss Eva will now present. So miss Eva the floor is yours. I hope you hear me. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I hope you hear me as well. I'm very happy that I can share with you our lower Silesian and my personal experiences on today's seminar. First of all, I'd like to apologize on behalf of my colleague me how fridge, who unexpectedly felt ill, and I give a presentation instead of him. I was presented. And I only want to add that I feel like first of all, a project manager, because I was involved in many European projects, but also I work at the innovation unit, which is a part of the economy department. And this is responsible for adopting very general innovation strategy, which aims at increasing the role of innovation in the original economy and strengthening skills and pro innovative attitudes. I'm going to give you some information how lower Silesia deal with mining issues. But firstly, I want to put lower Silesia in European and mining context. And then I will talk about the remix projects, and another supported projects, and at the end about the energy transitions, which was, which also my bed was told by Mr. Paul as well and it is a really big issue is in Poland now. So let's go to the next slide. Lower Silesia is a region located in the same central Europe in southwest of Poland. You can see that it borders with Czechia and Germany. Its population is about three million inhabitants and capital cities brought one. And this is one of the 16th Polish spoils ships. And as a region is a self governmental entities, which means that we execute public issues defined by law, such as public education health care special planning environmental protection, regional economy grow and so on. On behalf of regional authority the Marshall office administrates the regional property and manages finances based on the regional budget. So it acts on behalf of the value of ownership. It's most important tasks include managing regional policy, creating conditions for economic growth, implementing and managing strategic documents and management and distribution of European funds. Next slide please. Silesia is perfect business locations due to its infrastructure prepared for investment and good transport connections. That's why it's one of the best developed region in Poland and money play a role and this next slide please. This distinguishes lower Silesia compared to other Polish regions is diversity of mineral of mineral deposits, as you can see on the map. The most important mineral is copper and silver's the deposits of it are in North. Also, the deposit of gas are in North. Ground coal deposits are situated in Southwest. And there are plenty of high quality rock construction materials and they are located all over the region. And next slide please. The mining sector in lower Silesia is dominated by large company. KGHM is one of two biggest company which operates copper mines. And it is leaders not only lower Silesian but also Polish economy so it is one of the most important companies in Poland. The second one also mentioned before is PGE. It is the big company which operates an open cast brown coal mine to roof and power station as well. Apart from big companies, there are many small company mainly in stone mining and processing. It is also very, very popular in the region. There are also inactive coal fields situated in south of the region. There used to be hard coal mines by they were close in 90s of the 20s centuries but problem still are in this regions. As what analyze has identified weaknesses and challenges in the mining area, they are such as lack of clear national raw material strategy, low processing of resources, that means that domination of mining companies, low innovation factor and R&D expenditure in SMEs, depletion of mining resources, high investment and social cost of new mines and low social acceptance for new initiatives on mining activity. But there are also advantages and opportunities. There are elements are demanded on much larger scale. It is possible exploitation of mining wastes. There are also new ways of cooperation with appears like clusters. There is a big demands for construction materials, stones, and so on. And the mining sites are often used as centers of historical knowledge so it can be used as a touristic sites. Next slide please. Now I go through Remix project, which Lower Silesia joined in 2017, then it was considered in the category of an opportunity for better adjustment of regional innovation strategy in the area of mining and mineral resources. In line with European experience and regional expectations. The main goal of the project was to bring together mining region from Europe to support innovation and Lower Silesia wanted to achieve two main results. To improve the Lower Silesian innovation strategy and the second to integrate the mining stakeholders and administration for better implementation of the strategy. The next slide please. The main objective which support innovation was well defined, and it was to create a favorable environment for the development of the industry in order to effectively use the unique natural regional resources, to enable dialogue between various environments, regional and industry policy in the European context. Find ways to solve social conflicts and improve relations with local communities. This involvement of the research sector and increase the innovativeness of SMEs. Next slide please. The next project is financed from the Inter-Europe program, appointed for increasing regional cooperation in Europe, 10 partners from all over European mining regions, you can see on the map. We created a partnership and the leader of the partnership is Lapland regions, better known for Santa Claus headquarters. But anyway, it was good, it is good leader. Next slide please. The ceramics project gave us an opportunity to organize the original stakeholders group, concentrated on mining issues. The group gave our main actors from mining sector such as mining companies, mining administration, university and science institutes, cluster employers, organization, entrepreneurs, and so on. And it gave a real impulse for creating network of interest parties to stimulate extensive experience and know-how. And it is a base for cooperation in the common thematic areas. Next slide please. Project implementation included series of project activities such as peer reviews and study visits, international mining conferences, regular meeting of stakeholders, and development of project documents, which could help in development of mining sector projects and initiatives. For example, it was financial guides for finding instruments. It is, it has been because it is almost finished, I mean it will finish at the end of the March, so I don't know if I should say it was or it is. Project so called soft or people to people projects. So we didn't do it here and investment. Next slide please. Because I'm a little bit. Yeah, women created document of remix projects in lower Asia was an action plan, and it concentrated on two issues. And first was impact on the changes in the original innovation strategy. And as a result, a new lower Silesian innovation strategy. The year 2000 30 was adopted in January 2021 with smart specialization, natural resources and secondary raw materials. It was one of the seven smart specialization. It was improving the multi level governance of the strategy implementation. And the integration of main actors of mining ecosystem has allowed regional authorities better management of strategy in terms of better cooperation and development of new initiatives. Next slide please. On the left, there are strategic objective set in strategy as increasing the role of innovation in the original economy cooperation between entities of the lower Silesian innovation system. And strengthening skills and pro innovative attitudes, and they are realized by implementation projects according to a point in the original smart specialization. You can see it on the left, but I can see that there. Yeah, okay, but it should be a triangle inside so I okay. I just say various natural resources and recyclable material specialization machines and devices specialization chemistry and biomedicine automoto aerospace and you can see the horizontal specialization industry for zero green deal and technology supported life. Why is this area so important because they are creates we have the possibility and they should act as an engineer for economic growth as a project realize the within the area can get money from Europeans funds. Next slide please. Anyway, areas. You can see on the slides the specialization concerning natural resources and in more details. It focuses on acquisition of mineral resources obtaining grow materials from waste mineral processing and processing of natural resources. Next slide please. And now I present to supporting project that deals with mining and circular economy issues. Next slide please. The series cat project and has concerned on circular economy in European regions. It started in 2017, and I met developing of an action plan, which supports and improve the transition to a circular economy. One of the main reasons for joining the project was to gather experience from partner representing regions, more developed in the field of circular economy, and using their experience to update the lower season innovation strategy. So similar like in a remix. The next slide please. The original action plan has been created and it has been implemented in July 2019 and includes two actions improving original innovation strategy and organizing the pilot pilot test. The result of the project was also developing the analyze of mining waste start in the region. Next slide please. Yeah, there are many steps. It's the way how the strategy was updating. So the first was throwing up the strategy with products, then consulting with public, then excellent evaluation and final adaptation by the lower phase and bought at the beginning of January 2021. The next slide please. One of the most important result of this project was influencing the new strategy and forming a new original smart specialization called Green Deal. And the second action is social education and consists of several workshops for students on the topic of innovation and environmental priority of development. And priority of regions. And next slide please. We can skip it because there are photos from the project events. And then next project mine life, meaning living with mining. The next project which was which main goal was to intensify institutional cooperation between citizens and mining institution in the Saxony. It's a region in Germany which borders with lower Southeast Asia. The main results were very important for both partners, because it had them in development of new competences of mining institutions, development of effective conflict management strategy, and finding ways of mining image improving. And of course, understanding each other's what is very important between neighbors. Last slide please. Next slide. Yeah. Very important issues from European point of view is energy transformation. It's an unavoidable process which will affect Poland in the four coming years. It will affect in a social in a special way regions with the hardcore and brown coal mining industry, which includes lower Southeast Asia. As the first step in the process, lower Southeast Asia become a member of platform for coal regions in transitions established for exchange in changes, exchanging experiments between coal and post coal regions in Europe, and developing transformation projects. As the next step, European Commission presented a proposal for establishing the fund for just transitions. Currently just transition fund is one of the most important issue for all Europe's coal regions. The transition fund will support the energy transformation process by supporting social changes related to the labor market, also supporting investments related to development of post mining areas, investment in green energy, industrial modernization, circular economy and digitalization. So we are at the point when the just transition, but the territorial just transition plans are created for indicated coal mining regions, and are defined directions of development if in above mentioned area with regard to original smart industrialization. So it is pretty similar to what you are doing, creating the strategy and action plan and lower Southeast Asia create the territorial just transition plans from the software part of lower Southeast Asia. Near Valbrich, which is the poorest part of the regions and we hope it will become a greener and more sustainable sub region of lower Southeast Asia. The next slide is thank you very much for your attention. And I will try to answer your questions if I can of course thank you again. Thank you for presenting Mr. Alexander sport and Mrs. Ava crawl. I suggest that we rest for 10 minutes now, and then move to the Q&A session if you agree. We have 11 questions, as I can see for this particular area because the topics are interesting, and both the one presented by Mr. Alexander and by Mrs. Ava, particularly because we are as I already highlighted a rather mining country and we have a lot of power generation from thermo electric power plants and various types of coal so this will all be interesting particularly this fair transition fund. It'll be interesting for us. So it's 10 minutes enough so that we meet again at 10 to 12 to continue. If you all agree, then I will see you again at 10 to 12. We will go beyond the schedule because we planned to finish the webinar at 12 o'clock but it looks like, or depends really on how the questions answered, maybe we will not go very beyond the schedule so we will be offline for about 10 minutes and I will see you again at 10 to 12. Good morning and here we are back. So, let us move to the question. Do we have Mr. Alexander with us? Yes. Yes. Mr. Alexander has some things, some other engagements at 12 o'clock. He asked me to deal with the questions posed to him. Immediately, those he can answer, he will answer, those he cannot answer immediately, he will answer them in writing. So, one by one questions for Alexander. I will read the questions in local language for the sake of the interpretation so that the participants can hear. And then the interpreters will interpret for Alexander into English. So the first question was asked by, I'm not sure if it is Ms. or Mrs. Amela Cherich. She said that the presentation was excellent. So Mr. Alexander had information concerning the construction of new blocks using lignite and what is the future in the light of the Parisian agreement and the EU decarbonisation? No, there is no plans for building new coal or lignite, thermal coal or lignite power plants in Poland. Ostrowenka was the case announced by the former minister of energy as the last Polish coal-based unit, energy unit. And this didn't happen. So the two new blocks in two power plants in southern Poland, Opola and Rybnik, I think, were the two last coal power plants in Poland. And sorry, there was a second part of this question I probably forgot. What is the future in the light of the Parisian agreement? What is the future in the light of the Parisian agreement and the EU decarbonisation? Well, as for the coal, there is no plans to prolong any construction in this. The only chance to keep the coal power plants as long as possible is that those which were built under higher standards, with efficiency standards, being 44 to 46%, would be able to compete on the market, maybe until 40s, with other energy sources. But this, of course, depends mainly on the EU ETS price. Thank you, Alexander, for this reply. I hope Amelie is satisfied with it. The next question is from Azrab Berbic. I don't know if you see it, Alexander, in the Q&A, because it's in English. So the interpreter can simply, oh, sorry. The process of energy transition will be followed by the energy justice principles. What is the role of the Union's transition process? What is the role of the unions in energy transition process? Because the first part, okay, I read it now. Is there any strategy made in order to ensure that the process of energy transition will be followed by the energy justice principle? Of course. We have this just transition fund, which is mainly now attracting the attention, although there are also other funds, like structural funds, which will support just transition, not directly just, but they were acting and they will act in order to support it. But the main issue now is the just transition fund fund will receive 2 billion euro and one half of that will be attributed to Silesia, so the main hard call region in Poland. And in order to get the money, the EU member states are, the EU regions are obliged to create something, strategic documents to put forward the plans, the projects that would be able to create new jobs, provide new energy sources in compliance with the emission regulation, etc. So yes, we are in the process. Different regions in Poland, three regions in Poland are now openly competing to get the money. Three other regions are struggling to be included in the pool of money. But the problem is that none of them clearly states the period where they would phase out coal. So the union is reluctant to attribute any money if there is nothing like just transition necessary there. Next question. So the next question. What was the export of energy in Poland, and what is the import now or how, how much was the export reduced since the coal is being phased out approximately. Well, I think the whole history of import and export of electricity is a few percent or even less than 1% sometimes. It's a really important factor. What is important and what is visible maybe in my, if you look at my other presentations or the, even the books that I recommended, you may see a nice graph on the price on the export import of coal and the prices of exported and so basically the stories that from the coal exporting countries and from the country which was where coal was important part of the profits for the GDP for the, for the budget. Poland became an net importer of coal from Russia mainly, and the price, both price and volume of exports decreased below the level of imports. This is this one way story very clear in very nicely in graph written in the graph that profits from coal are no longer anything important. In fact, coal sector is struggling as if you had different sectors, the coal sector is struggling to remain neutral for the budget, whereas other sectors as transport or buildings or etc, are bringing much higher profits. The reason for that is special, mainly a special pension system for miners, which equals the profit, the tax, different taxes that coal mining sector is paying to the budget so basically it equals and and the sector remains neutral. Any other question. Thank you, Alexander, as far as I can see two more. One is very brief, obviously, if you know what was the damage caused in Poland. When it joined the energy community and the reduction of energy generation from fossil and sources from fossil fuels. I think energy community was created in 2005 so one year after the Poland accession to place so Poland was a member of the EU back then, so energy community didn't matter that much for Poland. And one more question by shutting down thermo electric power plants and exploitation of coal from which it gets 75% of the needed power, can it substitute it from the renewables or does it plan to substitute it from some other sources like nuclear energy and by which time does the Poland plan to shut down its coal mines? Well, the official, the official plan for shutting down coal mines, most of the hard coal mines at least is 2049. This is the subject of discussion of negotiations between trade unions and government. About the new sources of energy in the new energy mix, the coal, there is a new document issued last month Polish energy policy until 2040. So, from, for instance, coal in electricity production would be reduced to 56% in 2030. And I don't recall exactly how much in 2040, but I guess much below 50%. Now, what are the other sources? There are different, of course, Poland goes for different sources. We don't have yet a nuclear power plant. In fact, we supposed to have the first nuclear power plant in 2020. This was prolonged every two years for three years, sometime later. The current date is to have the first energy power plant, sorry, nuclear power plant in 2033 and until 2040 have to have six to nine gigawatts in nuclear power. So this would be one source but what we count on quicker would be offshore wind built on Baltic Sea. Of course, gas for which we build Baltic, we are building Baltic pipe from which connects us through Denmark and Sweden with North Sea and the resources in Norway. And of course solar, which is very negligible now but is expected to boom and last two years where we're extreme boom on solar power. So, none of the sources would, you know, we have very limited sources in hydro as we are a rather flat country. But as for the other energy sources, it's kind of equal, let's say balance mix. Thank you for the questions I will answer to all of them later on but I'm really, I have another meeting which I'm leading now so I'm sorry for going to another job now. Thank you very much. Bye. Thank you Alexander very much. Hope to stay in touch and thank you for your attendance today. Thank you. Thank you. And now questions for Mrs Eva crawl. So the first question from Mrs Kaia Patterson neutrality by the 5050 play in the Polish and So the question is what does the objective climate neutrality by 2050 play in the Polish and lower Silesia innovation strategy. Because climate neutrality is extremely important in Polish and lower Silesian policy documents. And as for lower Silesia, I would say that it is very important for lower Silesian development strategy and it's played the key role. And as for innovation strategy, which is related to innovation. This also very important. And it was defined the smart specialization green deal, which is areas. horizontal areas area and it means that projects from different branches and industries can be realized within this area. The strategies are very important, because they define projects of area of projects, which can be financed from European and original resources. So, of course, all products can take into account green deal. I think that it is necessary. Thank you for this answer. The next question is from Mr Zoran B banovic. Is there any experience in the nation of the environment after the exploitation or completion of a concession contract. Can I answer because, okay. I can say about our experiences in the public sub regions. Actually, it wasn't the matter of expiry of contract concessions because it was in the early stage of Polish transformation and just government to decision to close all minds in this regions. But it was a disaster from the social point of view. And I think it is why now European Commission decided to establish this just transition just transition just transition funds, which support main social changes. And of course there are also environmental problems with underground waters where heaps of waste and so on so on. But I would say that the main problem with our social issues. Thank you. The next question is from Mr Amar Chaushevich. I suggest that the translators read the question. Thank you. The next question is from Mr Amar Chaushevich and I suggest that the interpreters read it. Question for Mr Ewa Krol, Bosnia and Herzegovina will at one point most probably reduce the role of coal and its energy production as Poland is currently doing. What are in your opinion lessons learned from Poland that could be useful for us in Bosnia and Herzegovina. And how can we make this mineral related transition as sustainable as possible. How can the EU in your opinion help us in this process. As I said before, the most important social issues so involvement of stakeholders is is a crucial. And I think that all types of working groups in different areas are necessary because participants of working groups of they are representatives of of society which inhabits the coal mining areas and they will make projects which help in transport formations. So, I think the second very important issue is the good quality projects, and it needs quite a lot of time and social consensus because funds are also not enough money for all all necessary projects. So it is really important to work on good projects and of course good strategies actions plans and so on are also very important because they direct let's say the flow of money, but people are always the most important factor in all changes in our transformations. Thank you miss Eva there is another question and I think you answered this question in your presentation, who will finance the transition of areas of mining and creation of new jobs. I believe that you partly answered this question in your presentation. But I would like to add that yes, of course there is a just transition fund and there are structural funds in Poland and they are co financed by European Union. I think that now in our region, it will be maximum 50% because we, we are, as I said, one of the most developed region in Poland and we, we, our GDP is more than 75% that means that we have to co financed this project from our budget, I mean from original by a boat ship budget and local budgets in depends on project. And of course by by enter pro know as well because they are also money for for companies. So, General Vera Union, European Union money original local money and money beneficiaries who implement the projects they are involved in. Thank you. Miss Eva, I think we exhausted questions for you. As I can see, Maria asked about forestry this is a question for our colleagues from Croatia, and what we have received from SCI. The Stockholm environment Institute, they asked me to inform all the participants that in May, we will have another webinar or another meeting about the just transition and all the participants will be invited to attend this meeting so this is a preliminary information. And if this is in really relation with the fund for just transition. We. As the circumstances in Boston, it's going to draw the similar to the circumstances in Poland and slays. And many people fear that they could lose job once the mining bits are closed so to lock up a local partner and in another way, say, as I will organize this meeting which will discuss the just transition, sometimes in May, unless they are further questions for Miss Eva or anyone else. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the scroll and Alexander and step on and other presenters from Croatia. At some point, we had nearly 120 participants. The number of participants now is lower and I thank the interpreters who helped all of us to share information smoothly and to receive your comments and for the participants to receive their answers so I will close this webinar now and I'm looking forward to seeing you at another webinar or any other event. As anyone else, anything to add. Unless that's not the case. I would like to thank you. We apologize for exceeding the time a lot to us. Miss Kaya Patterson is also saying thanks on behalf of SCI. Thank you all very much. And goodbye.