TIRANA, Oct. 19 – President Bujar Nishani has vetoed a bill allowing Albanian companies to import waste for recycling, following protests and environmentalists’ concerns that it may allow Albania to become Europe’s “garbage bin.”
Parliament can override the veto, but it will need more votes than the minimal 63 lawmakers out of a total of 140 the Socialist-led ruling coalition was able to muster the last time.
Prime Minister Edi Rama said Tuesday night he continues to support the bill. Activists against the bill have vowed to camp in front of parliament should the MPs try to pass it again.
In an official document explaining his refusal to assent to the Waste Imports Bill, President Nishani said the draft violates European Directive 2008/98/EC.
It “sets the basic concepts and definitions related to waste and underlines the principle of ‘self-sufficiency and proximity.’ This means that states must aim to manage their own waste and they must ensure disposal of their own non-hazardous waste at the place of production,” notes the president’s explanation.
Nishani added that waste imports are not an obligation that derives from the Stabilization and Association Agreement or any other international accord ratified by the Republic of Albania.
In addition, the president said he believes that the waste import clashes with the priority set for the treatment of waste produced in the Albanian territory.
“This means that the recycling industry must be stimulated with facilitative fiscal policies such as scrapping VAT tax or approving subsidiaries, to deal primarily with local waste. Allowing waste imports makes such state policies impossible because subsidies cannot be approved for waste arriving from abroad. Furthermore, the waste import reduces the interest of recycling industry in waste produced in the country,” President Nishani’s statement added.
In his arguments, President Nishani also noted that the waste bill violates Article 59 of the country’s constitution which says that “the state must provide a healthy environment which is ecologically suitable for the existing and future generations,” hence it can compromise in an irreversible manner “the principle of a sustained development sanctioned by the constitution.”
The president’s arguments acknowledged that some of the same arguments were used by the Socialist Party in 2013 to ban waste imports. Socialists have now changed their minds, saying that recyclable waste imports are not the same as all waste and they are needed to save the recycling industry from bankruptcy.
A previous law on waste imports was initially adopted in 2011 by the previous Democratic Party-led government, but it was overturned by the former Socialist Party opposition before it entered into force. Now, the Socialists say the law has been adjusted and expanded to allow the strengthening of control and oversight capacities.
However, critics say the current government’s claim is not true. President Nishani echoed that sentiment, noting “the government has failed to deliver concrete measures taken to strengthen existing capacities or additional monitoring and oversight structures, including an increase in the budget, establishing laboratories and other steps to guarantee contemporary standards for the management of imported waste.”
The third reason for overturning the bill is related to the pursued procedures for the approval of the draft which according to President Nishani “were accelerated and taken in a lack of transparency, information and citizen participation, in violation of Article 56 of the Constitution, which gives citizens the right to be informed over the state of environment in the country and be part of the decision making process.”
A controversial bill
The waste imports bill was approved on Sept. 22 and was met with a spate of protests by environmental activists and outrage on social media. The bill also revealed cracks in the ruling coalition as only 63 MPs voted in favor, while several members of the coalition were not present. During the 12-hour parliamentary session there were 27 dissenting votes and the four MPs from the small right-wing Party for Justice, Integration and Unity abstained.
Environmentalists, who welcomed the president’s veto against the bill, said that the poor Balkan country is already buried under its own trash and it did not need any more.
However, government officials said that bill aims to provide support to the struggling recycling industry and that the draft provided more guarantees and safety.
Prime Minister Rama has said the bill is in harmony with European Union directives and that Albania is equipped with recycling factories certified by the European Union.
Opposition leader Lulzim Basha of the Democratic Party said he supports holding a referendum on annulling the law on waste. Basha praised all MPs from the ruling coalition “who had the courage not the obey the political order to vote” and said that the “law does not have the full support of the majority.”
According to Basha the waste import bill “is criminal and that those who supported the law should be considered directly responsible for endangering the health of hundreds of thousands of Albanians, and soil, water and food in the country due to increasing quantities of waste that will arrive as a result of the law.”
This is not the first time Albania has had a debate on waste imports. A plan was first put in motion in 2004 by the former Socialist government and aimed to import million tons of Italian garbage for processing and incineration.
Following protests, the plan was dropped until November 2011 when the Democratic Party-led government of the time passed legislation allowing imports of waste from abroad, cutting the original list of waste items allowed for import from 400 to 50 under pressure from environmentalists.
The latter were able to secure the right for a referendum to void the law — the first ever grassroots referendum approved in Albania.
However, the referendum never took place, as in October 2013, the Socialist-led government officially banned waste imports based on an electoral campaign promise.
A supporter of the referendum at the time, Prime Minister Rama says it is now not necessary.
“What should we have a referendum for, to allow companies to import a commodity like grain, coffee or sugar,” he said in a recent interview.
