February 6 (SeeNews) - Slovenia is struggling to comply with the EU environmental legislation and still has a relatively high number of environmental infringement cases, the European Commission said on Monday.
To reverse this situation, Slovenia must address its key non-compliance cases, the Commission said in its EU Environmental Implementation Review report for 2017.
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Slovenia's diverse and rich natural environment is its key natural resource. The Alpine country has the biggest share of land area covered by Natura 2000 and is one of the most forested countries in the EU. However, it requires a good planning system and environmental infrastructure to provide necessary safeguards, the Commission noted.
According to the Commission, Slovenia still faces a big challenge in streamlining the legal framework related to planning and environmental assessments. In order to meet the challenge, the country should ensure that EU environmental legislation is respected, while administrative burden and barriers to investments are reduced.
Furthermore, Slovenia must integrate its economic and nature considerations in the planning and environmental assessment system in order to preserve its extensive Natura 2000 network, and should prioritise waste-water investments to fulfil its accession treaty obligations, the Commission said.
On a positive note, Slovenia is the best performing EU-13 member state in terms of municipal waste recycling with its state-of-the-art regional waste management centre in Ljubljana. EU-13 refers to the 13 mostly eastern European countries which joined the European Union since 2004.
EU-wide, Slovenia boasts one of the highest contributions of revenues from environmental tax, the Commission said.