The recent meeting of Ljubljana Mayor Zoran Janković and Prime Minister Robert Golob around a table of meaty delicacies seems to have borne fruit. The Ministry of the Environment, Climate and Energy has granted Janković’s request and decided that an environmental impact assessment is not necessary for the concrete duct channels that the Municipality of Ljubljana (MOL) has installed for the C0 sewage canal.
“Golob gave Janković poisoned water for a portion of čevapčiči,” Ljubljana City Councillor Aleš Primc wrote on X, who is appalled by the Ministry’s decision. According to the competent ministry, an environmental impact assessment is not necessary for the concrete duct channels, which the Ljubljana municipality has installed in the C0 connecting sewage canal that runs through a water catchment area.
“Hugs, čevapčiči and hornbeam trees (gaber in Slovenian) instead of spruce trees in Ljubljana have all had an effect. Janković is one step closer to destroying a public good – drinking water. A sewage canal will be built over a key water catchment area without an environmental impact assessment?! It is the people of Ljubljana, the inhabitants of the most beautiful city in the world, who are first and foremost on the line!” MP Anja Bah Žibert indignantly commented on the Ministry’s decision.
Namely, the Administrative Court upheld the Ljubljana municipality’s lawsuit and overturned the decision of the former Ministry of the Environment and Spatial Planning, which had rejected the Municipality’s request to annul the 2020 decision of the Slovenian Environment Agency (ARSO) that the construction of the C0 canal with the concrete duct channels was subject to an environmental impact assessment. The court referred the decision to the Ministry of Environment, Climate and Energy for a second review.
According to Krištof Mlakar, Director-General of Public Holding Ljubljana (Javni holding Ljubljana) and former Director of the municipal public enterprise Voka Snaga (the public utilities company), on the 29th of December, the Ministry found that the Slovenian Environment Agency had taken two different decisions on the same matter and abolished the third point of the decision. Thus, the environmental impact assessment for the C0 canal is not necessary, and the concrete duct channel, as such, is an additional safeguard measure and an integral part of the project to be implemented.
“Minister Kumer issued a decision that there was no need to carry out an assessment of the impact that 3,000,000 litres of hazardous sewage running over drinking water reservoirs in the most earthquake-prone area in Slovenia every day would have on the water in question. Golob gave Janković poisoned water for a portion of čevapčiči,” wrote Primc, who believes that this is an environmental crime.
Primc: Minister Kumer did not dare sign this “madness”
A little later, Primc also published on the same network a decision issued on the 29th of December last year, which was not signed by the Minister of the Environment, Bojan Kumer, but by his State Secretary, Tina Seršen. Primc is convinced that “Kumer did not dare to sign this madness” and that this is why they chose Seršen to do it.
Former Minister Aleš Hojs also reacted to the decision and is convinced that it is an indication of corruption: “The decision of the Ministry on the environmental impact assessment for the C0 canal is an additional indication of political corruption (great meat delicacies for the New Year, right…), which is how the Investigative Commission of the National Assembly under the leadership of MP Anja Bah Žibert has received yet another confirmation of the urgency of conducting an investigation.”
The court referred the decision to the Ministry of the Environment, Climate and Energy for reconsideration, which – just before the new year – found that, in Mlakar’s words, “the Environment Agency had decided differently twice on the same matter, and abolished point 3 of the decision, i.e. an environmental impact assessment for the C0 canal is not necessary and the concrete duct channel is an additional safeguard measure and an integral part of the project to be implemented”. Shortly after it was “concluded” that no environmental impact assessment was needed, a photo of Janković and Golob sitting and laughing in front of a meat feast went viral on social networks. Coincidence?
Janković with cynicism
Janković has also responded to the Ministry’s decision, cynically congratulating his colleagues for “withstanding all the pressures from the so-called civic initiatives, which asserted their will by lying in an excavator.” In addition, he now expects a public apology from the President of the Republic, Nataša Pirc Musar, for calling for a temporary suspension of work on the C0 canal and for stating that, in her opinion, an environmental impact assessment is needed. The President’s Office has already responded, stating that they are not aware of the decision because they are not a party to the proceedings, and reiterating that concern for the provision and preservation of clean drinking water must be of fundamental and decisive importance at both the national and the local level.
Not only that, but the Mayor also took issue with the Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry for determining wrongdoing in the construction of the C0 sewerage channel in the Ljubljansko Polje aquifer area, asking whether the National Assembly would still want to have a commission to look into the irregularities in the C0 canal process and the need to carry out an environmental impact assessment for the concrete duct channels “even now that it is clearly confirmed that the concrete duct channel is part of the project and that there is no need to carry out an environmental impact assessment.”
