Bosnia will Soon Have to Tax CO2 Emissions 

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Bosnia and Herzegovina will, probably very soon, have to start taxing carbon dioxide emissions, Director of the Energy Community Secretariat Janez Kopac has said. 

In an interview with Radio Free Europe, Kopac said that the fact the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina was continuing to build Block 7 of the TPP Tuzla despite opposition from the Energy Community, of which Bosnia and Herzegovina is a member, was the biggest sanction for the country and proof that it did not abide by the rules of the international organization it had joined, and wanted to join the EU. 

That, he adds, is not the first disregard for the rules of the Energy Community on Bosnia’s part. Block 7 will be financed by an Exim Bank of China loan totaling EUR641m. 

In spite of the Energy Community’s opposition, the House of Representatives of the federal parliament provided the loan guarantee last year. Kopac says that sometime in November a discussion will be held within the Energy Community of a report against Bosnia and Herzegovina, for violating the legal order of the Energy Community by giving a state guarantee for the construction of Block 7. 

When asked what was controversial for the Energy Community regarding the construction of Block 7, Kopac replied that the state guarantee issued in the amount of 100% of the investment was legally, formally controversial, because it should total no more than 80% of the investment since the power utility company Elektroprivreda BiH was a market company. 

He added that today nobody built coal-fired power plants anymore. 

In addition, Bosnia and Herzegovina will, as he put it, probably have to introduce a tax on carbon dioxide emissions very soon. 

The tax in the EU is about EUR25 per ton, i.e. around EUR25 per MWh. “The current price of electricity, if we include the price of carbon dioxide, would be so high that many would be unlikely to survive it. 

That is what awaits Bosnia and Herzegovina. Then that investment will prove to be economically very, very questionable. But that is not up to us. It is up to those who will pay it, i.e. citizens of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina,” said Kopac.