ZAGREB, 18 Feb 2022 - Discussing changes to the Air Protection Act on Friday, Croatian parliamentarians pointed to the long-standing problem of air pollution in Slavonski Brod, which State Secretary Mile Horvat described as "a complex case."

Horvat said that the authorities of that eastern city on the Sava River, across the city of Brod in neighboring Bosnia and Herzegovina, had sent the Economy and Sustainable Development Ministry an action plan for the improvement of air quality six times and that the ministry returned the report six times because the measures envisaged were not good.

He noted that ministry officials in January had meetings with representatives of Slavonski Brod, Osijek, and Zagreb to instruct them how those actions plan should look.

Following talks with the competent authorities of Bosnia and Herzegovina, concerning the oil refinery in Brod, about which Slavonski Brod authorities had been complaining for years, Horvat said that some progress had been made.

We no longer have the degree of emissions and pollution as before, he said in response to HDZ MP Miro Totgergeli and Social Democrats MP Marina Opačak Bilić, stressing that Slavonski Brod has a number of problems, that pollution there increases in the winter due to traffic and people using wood for heating, which, he said, causes hydrogen sulfide emissions that do not come from the neighboring country.

Most of Croatia has top air quality

Horvat explained that action plans to improve air quality are adopted only by those agglomerations which are found to exceed the annual average of allowed particle pollution.

That is the obligation of their leaders, the Ministry does not do that, Horvat told MPs, confirming that those who put forward a plan must also ensure funds for its implementation.

He also noted that air in most of Croatia was of top quality, while in some urban centers it was below that category.

However, Vesna Vučemilović of the Croatian Sovereignists cited data from the European Environment Agency, saying that the quality of air in Croatia gives cause for concern.

It is estimated that every year there are more than 5,000 premature deaths due to poor air quality, she said.

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