Recent Trends in Environmental Law in Slovakia

Quality of air

The Ministry of Environment has prepared a draft of a new law on air protection, with the following aims, among others:

• setting the permissible level of air pollution;
• correcting the monitoring and assessment of air quality;
• providing municipalities with new authority to limit the operation of selected small sources of air pollution; and
• for the first time, addressing odour regulation, which municipalities will also have through a publicly binding regulation.

So far, this legal framework has only been approved by the government.

The proposed legislation also introduces the following:

• the possibility of the Slovak Environmental Inspectorate controlling individual waste incineration;
• an absolute ban on the burning of secondary solid fuels (from 2026);
• an increase in production standards for industrial operations;
• the development of a smog regulatory plan for locations with a high risk of air pollution; and
• requirements for the quality of fuels and combustion products.

Slovakia is currently facing a lawsuit from the European Commission for having insufficient air protection and exceeding the limit value of pollution, which was also the ground for the new legal framework.

The most discussed issue in the area of environmental protection is reform of the management of Slovak national parks. The Ministry of Environment seeks to consolidate their management with the management of publicly owned lands within the parks and neighbouring lands, and to make a clear distinction between non-intervention zones and commercial forestry areas. Currently, the competences are divided between entities under the umbrellas of the Ministry of Environment and the Ministry of Agriculture.

The Ministry of Environment seeks to transfer management of protected lands to the Nature Protection Authorities, and to delineate remediation zones between these lands and commercially used forests. This would affect the total area of non-intervention zones and the strictness of the rules for different protected areas, as well as the output of allowed commercial forestry.

Contaminated sites

Legislation ensuring that the state can recover remediation costs expended on privately owned contaminated sites is being passed through the Slovak Parliament. Private owners would be obliged to reimburse the costs of publicly funded remediation measures, to the extent of the difference in the market price of such land before and after the remediation, up to the efficiently incurred costs of geological survey and remediation measures.

Should the legislation be adopted, owners will be obliged to either remedy the costs within 30 days upon request or agree to a 30-year contractual lien on the land. Otherwise, competent state authorities should initiate court proceedings. The statute of limitation for claim recovery is set at ten years.

A new administrative procedure is also proposed, in which the Ministry of Environment would adopt a decision placing a lien on the contaminated land subject to the remediation, to be lifted once the remediation costs are fully reimbursed.

This legislation seeks to address, in particular, the situation of old industrial sites with unclear environmental burden liability. In most cases, the identity or responsibility of the originator (ie, the entity or person whose activities caused the contamination) cannot be sufficiently established or proved. Some environmental burdens remain unremedied many years after the transfer of ownership of the industrial complex from the state to private owners. Also, unknown or unacknowledged contamination, or the extent of contamination on established sites, is still being discovered. The proposed cost-recovery mechanism seeks to allow the state to remedy these sites, using public funds, recovering the costs and ensuring that these sites no longer present risks to the environment and public health.

Indirect emission costs state aid scheme

The Ministry of Environment is working on new legislation that aims to clarify the state aid scheme for manufacturers in sectors that are exposed to a genuine risk of carbon leakage due to significant indirect costs incurred from greenhouse gas emission costs that are passed on in electricity prices. The change should affect the conditions for granting the aid, as well as the use of emission sale revenues. Use of revenues should refocus on the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, inter alia by promoting low-emission forms of transport and reforestation.

Energy recovery and reprocessing

Public authorities are working to build relationships with local producers to ensure they reprocess locally produced waste to the maximum capacity. As a result, local cement manufacturers are committed to use as much locally produced waste as fuel in their productions as possible. So far, only 20% of waste used in cement manufacturing in Slovak is produced locally, with the rest being imported.

New Developments

Rise of the hydrogen strategy

In 2021, the government approved the basic framework of its national hydrogen strategy, which, in accordance with the Paris Climate Agreement, aims to contribute to a carbon-neutral society. Slovakia, for example, plans to use hydrogen in the industrial sector, as well as in personal and public transport. As of August 2021, any public procurement of cars and trucks must include a mandatory share of ecological vehicles. Based on the new law on the support of ecological road transport vehicles, the first hydrogen-powered buses should be operating in Bratislava by autumn 2023.

Hydrogen technology brings a perspective to the planning of urban public transport in the future because, compared to electric buses, these vehicles benefit from a longer range and also faster refuelling, which are reasons that could inspire other cities as well. In February 2022, the first hydrogen filling station was opened by a private company in the capital, but in the future it is assumed that there should be up to 40 of them.

Municipal waste sorting and recycling

The focus is on separate collection, material recovery and a significant decrease in landfill. In line with the EU objectives, Slovakia’s aim is to recycle at least 55% of municipal waste by 2025, while ensuring that at least 60% of it is subject to separation. Businesses can no longer deliver separately collected municipal waste from packaging and non-packaged products to local collection facilities without a charge. A ban on landfill disposal of biodegradable waste from wholesale, retail premises and distribution will be introduced from 1 January 2023. Municipal sorting of textiles will be obligatory from 1 January 2025.

An obligation to equip all municipal waste collection vehicles with waste-weighing scales, starting from 1 January 2023, has been reconsidered. Entities collecting municipal mixed waste or carrying out separate collection of waste from packaging and non-packaged products will be required to do so only if requested by the respective municipalities. Reporting duties remain unchanged: waste collection entities will be obliged to report the amounts of collected waste to respective municipalities on a monthly basis as of 2023.

Single-use plastic (SUP) products

Directive (EU) 2019/904 was transposed on 15 November 2021. SUP producers of the following products are required to mark the packaging or the product itself in line with EU regulations, including information on the presence of plastics in the product and the resulting negative impact of littering or other inappropriate means of waste disposal of the product on the environment:

• sanitary towels;
• tampons and tampon applicators;
• personal care and domestic wet wipes; and
• tobacco products with filters and tobacco filters.

Use of SUPs is banned in public canteens and fast-food establishments. SUP cutlery may not be used during public events. SUP food and beverage take-away containers are provided only for a charge, and are to be presented as a less desirable alternative to reusable or biodegradable containers.

Renewable energy sources

A direct subsidy for the production of electricity from renewable energy sources has been extended to 20 years following the initial commencement of production. This concerns installations using the following:

• hydropower, solar energy, biomass, landfill gas or sewage treatment plant gas, with an installed capacity up to 500 kW; and
• electricity produced by high-efficiency co-generation in installations using co-generation processes with an installed capacity up to 1 MW, which use at least 60% of generated heat to supply centralised heat supply systems and guarantee primary energy savings at the level of at least 10%.

The extension of subsidy payments is accompanied by a decrease in the electricity prices of the electricity producers concerned, which were set when they started production. Subsidies in the form of electricity feed-ins by electricity buyers for feed-in tariff prices and assuming responsibility for imbalances by electricity buyers were also extended up to the end of 2033.

Promotion of clean road transport vehicles

New legislation sets forth minimum procurement targets for clean-duty and heavy-duty vehicles that are subject to harmonised EU procurement rules, and for the procurement of public interest services in personal public transport. It concerns procurements commenced after August 2021.

The legislation transposes Directive (EU) 2019/1161, which is part of measures aiming to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 40% by 2030 compared to 1990 levels, and to increase the proportion of renewable energy consumed to at least 27%, to make energy savings of at least 27%.

The restriction applies to contracts for the purchase, lease, rent or hire-purchase of road transport vehicles awarded by certain contracting authorities or entities that are subject to public procurement rules, as well as public service contracts. It concerns all M1, M2, M3, N1, N2 and N3 vehicles as well as trolley-buses, except for those explicitly exempted.

Agricultural and forestry vehicles, two-wheel or three-wheel vehicles and quadricycles, track-laying vehicles and certain self-propelled vehicles are not covered by the legislation. Slovakia has used the allowed exemptions to the fullest. Minimum procurement and public service-use targets do not apply to:

• vehicles designed or adapted for use solely by the armed services;
• vehicles for use on construction sites or in quarries, port or airport facilities;
• vehicles designed or adapted for use by civil protection, fire services and police forces; and
• armoured vehicles, ambulances, hearses, wheelchair-accessible vehicles and mobile cranes.

When concluding public contracts for the purchase, lease, rent or hire-purchase of light-duty vehicles, until the end of 2030, at least 22% of procured vehicles must meet the criteria for clean vehicles; the target for the procurement of trucks is 8% and 34% for buses/trolley-buses, until the end of 2025. Minimum procurement targets for the procurement of clean buses/trolley-buses should increase to 48% in the period from 2026 to 2030.

The fines for non-compliance are significant: up to EUR1 million in the case of buses/trolley-buses, up to EUR500,000 in the case of light-duty vehicles and EUR300,000 in the case of heavy-duty vehicles.

Genetically modified organisms (GMOs)

Slovakia has transposed Directive (EU) 2015/412EU, allowing the restriction or prohibition of the cultivation of GMOs in the Slovak Republic. The competence to restrict or prohibit such cultivation is granted to the government, which can adopt such measures if justified by, for example, its environmental policy objective, agricultural policy objective or public policy. If adopted, a restriction or prohibition would be applicable from the beginning of the next marketing year.

Conclusion

Despite the public health and economic challenges of the past year, Slovak public authorities have been active in enforcing environmental laws and proposing necessary legislative changes, including bringing into force laws transposing EU legislation. This trend is expected to continue, with increased focus on the enforcement of environmental laws. The ongoing debate on the reform of the public administration system is likely to also bring proposals affecting the competences and organisation of the environmental agencies.