The presentation was opened by the official representative of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, Daniel Braun, who stressed: "The Republic of North Macedonia faces many challenges in the field of environment, which should be jointly addressed by all state levels. Therefore, greater efficiency and better equipment for the environmental inspectors is needed. However, on the other hand, the citizens themselves need to develop great awareness of these problems, because the state services rely on cooperation with the citizens. Given that all residents breathe the same polluted air and face the consequences of it on their health, these challenges should result in joint efforts of all political actors in the country, and not be part of party-political debates. It is a choice that affects all citizens regardless of their party affiliation, religion or ethnicity. In that direction, a functional service for environmental protection would be the crucial cornerstone.”

Deputy Minister of Environment and Physical Planning, Hristina Odzaklieska shared the activities of the Ministry in this area. Odzaklieska stated that in the past period a number of legal solutions were adopted based on international European standards, which led to the promotion of decentralization of some local governments, i.e. independent conduct of administrative procedures by local inspection services. However, despite these efforts, some of them have not yet appointed local environmental inspectors.

Gorica Nadzinska, Project Manager at Center for Legal Research and Analysis (CPIA), briefly outlined the current activities of the Center related to the protection and promotion of the environment, through the prism of providing judicial protection. Nadzinska reflected on the trainings for judges and public prosecutors dedicated to environmental protection, the participation in the working group for amendments to the Criminal Code aiming to implement new crimes related to the violation of the right to a healthy environment, as well as the establishment of a Platform for environmental justice in which key institutions and organizations are members.

The speakers in the second part of the event were the authors of the analysis, Jugoslav Gjorgievski - legal expert, Zarko Hadzi Zafirov - Program Manager of the CPIA, Irena Shentevska from the Sector for Environmental Protection in the City of Skopje, as well as Darko Blinkov from the State Environmental Inspectorate.

In this part, the main points of the Analysis were presented in more detail, whereby Jugoslav Gjorgievski briefly referred to the relatively weakened inspection system, as a result of inconsistent accountability between central and local inspection bodies. He stated that there were major shortcomings in organizing the technical and personnel capacities, which further complicated the activities of inspectors in field work, stating that the entire system of inspection should be reviewed as soon as possible, as well as a detailed functional analysis of local facilities should be conducted. Irina Shentevska from the City of Skopje agreed with Gjorgievski's remarks and pointed out that the local environmental inspectors also need greater institutional protection in terms of improving the conditions for field work.

Zarko Hadzi Zafirov, one of the authors of the analysis and moderator of the event, stressed the importance of respecting the right to a healthy environment, as a right guaranteed by the Constitution in Article 43, clearly emphasizing that the state is responsible to constantly fulfil the obligation to protect that right. He stressed that the role of local inspection services in undertaking activities to ensure a healthy environment is important, including, of course, the State Inspectorate, in terms of the possibility and need of citizens to contact the competent municipality for issues and problems related to the environment.

Darko Blinkov from the State Environmental Inspectorate briefly expressed his concern over the disproportion in the completeness of the human resources in the area of ​​authorized environmental inspectors in the municipalities, pointing to the need for greater coordination and inter-municipal cooperation to fully utilize existing capacities. As an additional shortcoming, Blinkov highlighted the personnel policy in terms of the adequacy of the education of the authorized environmental inspectors.

During the open discussion, the participants concluded that, in order to establish effective local inspection, a joint effort is needed by all relevant institutions, without delaying the necessary activities. In this part, the specific conclusions arising from the analysis of the capacities of the inspection services were discussed, which include the following:

• The inspection services are completely unequipped, in terms of personnel and technical equipment, operating without the necessary means and vehicles, as well as insufficiently implemented appropriate trainings.
• There is no legal mechanism for accountability and coordination of central and local inspectors.
• The Council of Inspection Authorities imposes additional administrative responsibilities which is an additional burden for the inspectors in their work.
• There is a need to change the system of environmental inspection in order to simplify its implementation by giving this competence to the State Environmental Inspectorate at both central and local level.

The prepared analysis will be forwarded and shared with all relevant and concerned stakeholders in the environmental protection process through the Platform for Environmental Justice, thus making the key remarks and relevant proposals available to policy makers, in order to be appropriately applied in future processes dedicated to environmental protection.