Governance Challenges in the Green Transition: Insights from the Western Balkans

This comparative report is the third deliverable of WP4—Measuring and assessing impacts and costs of a just green transition in the Western Balkans (WB) - of the GreenFORCE project. It has been jointly authored by the WB project partners and the EU project partners. The European Union Economic and Investment Plan for the Western Balkans outlines a comprehen- sive strategy to support green transition and sustainable development towards a carbon-neutral economy in the region. Such a shift will surely challenge the economies and societies in the WB. The social and policy contexts are yet fragile to allow for the development and mass distribution of green transition technologies. At the same time, human resources are not prepared and/or are insufficient to produce and implement innovation. The research conducted in WP4 will inform on the readiness/ potential of societal actors (industry, academia, policymakers, civic society) to embrace the pathways to transformation. It will propose a framework for continuous monitoring of impacts and costs. The key findings and lessons learned from WP4 will be transferred into the scientific papers and policy briefs (WP 2 & 3) and published under the dissemination events (WP5). Specifically, this comparative report focuses on the challenge of transition, which lies, inter alia, in the governance system, actors, and institutions that plan and manage it. The report builds upon the information from tasks 4.1-4.3 and on an in-depth desk review to analyse institutions and systems. The connection of green transition to the spatial planning systems and regional policies in the WB has been particularly interesting. While the WB partners deepened their research, the EU partners provided a comparative view based on their own experience. This task is bi-directionally linked with assessing the impacts/costs of green transition (task 4.3 and deliverable D4.5).