Legal Acts in English

This Law shall regulate the management of air quality and determine the measures, manner of organization and control of the implementation of protection and improvement of air quality as a natural value of general interest that enjoys special protection.

The provisions of this Law shall not apply to pollution caused by radioactive materials, industrial accidents and natural disasters.

Air protection shall be achieved by:

1) establishing, maintaining and improving a unified air quality management system in the territory of the Republic of Serbia;

2) preservation and improvement of air quality through the establishment and implementation of measures in the field of protection in order to prevent or reduce harmful consequences for human health and / or the environment;

3) avoiding, preventing and reducing pollution that affects the ozone layer *;

4) monitoring, obtaining and evaluating appropriate air quality data based on measurements and standardized methods;

5) ensuring the availability of air quality data;

6) performing obligations in accordance with ratified international agreements;

7) international cooperation in the field of protection and improvement of air quality and ensuring the availability of such data to the public.

The individual expressions used in this Law shall have the following meanings:

1) air shall be the air in the open troposphere which does not include indoor air;

2) ceased to be valid (see Article 82 of the Law - 26/2021-3)

3) fuel shall be any solid, liquid or gaseous combustible material used for combustion in a mobile source of pollution and combustion plant, save for municipal and hazardous waste;

4) upper limit of assessment shall be the prescribed level of pollutants below that the assessment can be performed by a combination of measurements and assessment methods based on mathematical models and/or other relevant assessment methods;

5) tolerance limit shall be the percentage of permitted exceedances of the limit value under prescribed conditions;

6) limit value shall be the highest permitted level of pollutants in the air, determined on the basis of scientific knowledge, in order to avoid, prevent or reduce harmful consequences for human health and / or the environment and which must not be exceeded once reached;

7) emission limit value shall be the maximum permitted value of the concentration of pollutants in waste gases from stationary and mobile sources of pollution that can be released into the air in a certain period;

8) lower limit of assessment shall be the prescribed level of pollutants below which the assessment can be performed only using assessment methods based on mathematical models and / or other assessment methods;

9) contribution to pollution from natural sources shall be the emissions of pollutants caused by natural events such as seismic and geothermal activities, forest fires, extreme weather events, including pollen, which are not directly or indirectly caused by human activities;

10) long-term goal shall be the level of pollutants that is set as a goal for a longer period of time, if by applying appropriate measures the limit value cannot be reached within the given deadline;

11) emission shall be the release of pollutants in gaseous, liquid or solid state from a source of pollution into the air;

12) ceased to be valid (see Article 82 of the Law - 26/2021-3)

13) polluting substance shall be any substance (introduced directly or indirectly by man into the air) present in the air, having harmful effects on human health and the environment as a whole;

14) interested public shall be the public that is affected or likely to be affected by the operation of the plant and the performance of activities, including non-governmental organizations dealing with environmental protection and registered with the competent authority;

15) indicative measurements shall be the measurements for which less stringent requirements are set in terms of data quality than those required for fixed measurements;

16) public shall be one or more natural or legal persons, their associations, organizations or groups;

17) concentration reported to the public shall be the level of pollutants whose exceedance poses a danger to the health of particularly sensitive parts of the population from short-term exposure, about which urgent and appropriate information to the public is necessary;

18) concentration dangerous to human health shall be the level of a pollutant whose exceedance represents a danger to human health from short-term exposure, in the event of which appropriate prescribed measures must be taken urgently;

19) critical level shall be the level of pollutants based on scientific knowledge, above which a direct harmful effect may occur on some receptors such as trees, other plants or natural ecosystems but not on humans;

20) maximum national emission shall be the maximum amount of pollutants expressed in kilotons that in the Republic of Serbia that can be emitted in one calendar year in accordance with ratified international agreements;

21) level of pollutants shall be the concentration of pollutants in the air or their deposition on the surface in a certain period of time, which reflects the air quality;

22) unintentionally released long-term organic pollutants shall be the substances that are persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic, which are emitted from stationary and mobile sources of pollution, such as polychlorinated dibenzofurans and polychlorinated dibenzodioxylene, polychlorochloride aromatics, polycyclic

23) authorized legal entity shall be a professional organization accredited as a testing laboratory, which meets the prescribed conditions and has a permit from the ministry responsible for environmental protection (hereinafter: the Ministry) to perform air monitoring and / or emission measurement;

24) operator shall be any company, other legal entity or entrepreneur that in accordance with the regulations, shall manage the facility, control it or is authorized to make economic decisions in the field of technical functioning of the facility;

25) basic rural locations shall be the measuring points away from significant sources of air pollution that are used to provide data on basic concentrations of pollutants in places that are not directly exposed to air pollution;

26) basic urban locations shall be the measuring points in urban areas where the levels of exposure to pollutants of the general urban population are representative;

27) air quality assessment shall be any method used for measuring, calculating, forecasting and estimating the level of pollutants in order to determine the area according to the level of pollution;

28) plans and programs shall be the instruments which determine measures in order to reach the limit and target values, in case they are exceeded;

29) mobile source of pollution shall be an internal combustion engine installed in a means of transport or working machines;

30) combustion plant shall be a technical system (combustion chamber) in which fuel is oxidized in order to use the heat produced in this way;

31) ozone precursors shall be the substances that contribute to the formation of ground-level ozone;

32) ground-level ozone shall be the ozone located in the lowest layers of the troposphere;

33) ozone depleting substances shall be the substances with an ozone depletion potential greater than zero, as follows: chlorofluorocarbons, other fully halogenated chlorofluorocarbons, halons, carbon tetrachloride, 1,1,1-trichloroethane (methyl chloroform), methyl bromofluorochloride, chlorofluorocarbons and bromochloromethane, whether alone or in a mixture, new, collected, recovered or treated, controlled in accordance with the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer;

34) stationary source of pollution shall be a stationary technical unit, including a combustion plant, in which one or more activities that may lead to air pollution are performed, as well as any other activity where there is a technical connection with the activities performed at that place and which can produce emissions and pollution;

35) tolerance value shall be the limit value increased by the tolerance limit;

36) total sedimentary substances shall be the total mass of pollutants that have reached the surface from the atmosphere (e.g. soil, vegetation, water, buildings, etc.) in a given area in a given period of time;

37) fixed measurements shall be the measurements performed at fixed locations, continuous or occasional sampling in order to determine the level of pollutants in accordance with the relevant data quality objectives;

38) fluorinated greenhouse gases shall be the fluorinated gases that have a potential for ozone depletion equal to zero, and which have a global warming potential, namely: fluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons and sulfur hexafluoride;

39) target value shall be the level of pollutants determined in order to avoid, prevent or reduce harmful effects on human health and/or the environment as a whole, which shall be achieved within the specified period.