Freshwater - National Responses (Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia)

Figure 16 presents the structure of expenditure over time for different categories of the water sector if implementation of the EU water Directives were to start immediately, without regard to the aforementioned resource constraints. This is a necessary first step, preliminary to an integrative process of extending the timetable, to be done within the national strategy.

In parallel with investments in wastewater treatment plants, the values of chemical oxygen demand (COD), total phosphates and total nitrates are expected to show a substantial decrease (Figure 17).

Policy context and solutions and actions taken by the country

The country still does not have a proper water strategy document.

The National Environmental Action Plan (NEAP 2) identified some policy and technical priorities for actions such as:

• finalising the legislation, establishing a new organisational set up for water resource management, protecting water quality and maintaining the water balances of the three natural lakes: Ohrid, Prespa and Dojran in cooperation with the neighbouring countries;
• protection of surface and groundwater from pollution by urban and industrial wastewaters, protection of the water quality of the reservoirs, especially those whose water is used for drinking water supply, recreation, sport and tourism;
• improvement of rural drinking water supply and access to healthy drinking water;
• investment in upgrading urban water supply systems;
• improvement of urban public sewage systems through physical rehabilitation of the systems, upgrading, extension and modernisation;
• extension and construction of rural sewerage systems and construction of isolated wastewater treatment plants;
• improvement of the condition of irrigation systems through improvement of flood protection and erosion protection systems;
• improvement of the water regime by construction of new multipurpose hydro-power systems;
• introduction of water-saving measures for water consumption – pricing policy, introduction of irrigation methods for water saving, use of other sources for supply to industries, etc.;
• improvement of the state monitoring network for waters and creating conditions for extending and populating the data base;
• establishment and operation of local networks for water monitoring by local self-governing units;

• protection of surface and underground waters from diffuse sources of pollution.

Under the Law on Waters (Official Gazette 98/08), the Ministry of Environment and Physical Planning (MEPP), in cooperation with public utilities, local and regional authorities, has identified the poor state of existing sewerage networks and wastewater treatment plants, as well as the need to provide new ones. The relevant activities have been planned for the period 2007-2015 for agglomerations of more than 2 000 people and in the period 2014-2025 for agglomerations of less than 2 000. Construction of sewerage networks is envisaged for the period 2008-2015 for larger agglomerations, and by 2025 for smaller ones. The development of detailed designs for new wastewater treatment plants will be provided through technical assistance projects, including construction in accordance with the adopted programmes. The construction has been planned to continue until 2025 by when full compliance with the Urban Wastewater Directive should be achieved. For this, the MEPP will need to identify the resources required to cover the costs of design, construction and maintenance of sewerage systems and wastewater treatment plants by users and set a fee collection system based on the polluter pays principle.