Uroš Ćemalović

ENERGY TRANSITION IN INNOVATIVE PUBLIC POLICIES IN SERBIA AND THE REGION – CHALLENGES OF DECENTRALIZATION AND DEMETROPOLIZATION***

The Republic of Serbia, as a country with the status of a candidate for membership in the European Union, opened the 15th and 27th negotiation chapters (which deal with energy and environmental protection) at the end of 2021. On the way to successfully closing the mentioned chapters, Serbia can rely on the experiences of neighbouring EU member states; Croatia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria. Therefore, the primary goal of this paper is to carry out a comparative analysis of the energy transition policies implemented in those countries, while – in order to fulfil the secondary goal – it also strives to consider ways in which these policies could be implemented in Serbia itself, primarily through cross-border inter-municipal cooperation with the mentioned countries. In this respect, the paper concentrates on bottom-up energy transition policies, since recent research (dealing with cross-border cooperation in the field of energy transition and ecology) indicates that there is a need to strengthen inter-municipal cooperation, that is, the need for greater decentralization and demetropolisation. In order to achieve the stated goals, an interdisciplinary approach is applied; one which relies on the methodology of legal, political and economic sciences. On the one hand, local energy transition policies implemented in neighbouring EU member states are subjected to SWOT analysis, while, on the other hand, potential models of experience exchange between local self-governments and possible ways of cross-border inter-municipal cooperation on joint projects are critically considered. The results indicate that there is large potential when it comes to cross-border inter-municipal cooperation in the form of achieving goals in the field of energy transition and environmental protection, but this potential remains unutilised. An obstacle in this regard is the centralized state apparatus of the Republic of Serbia and certain neighbouring EU members, while the Romanian example can serve as a roadmap for overcoming this problem.