Balkan air pollution crisis threatens public health, EU membership goals

OBILIC, Kosovo/BELGRADE, Jan 23 (Reuters) - For 30 years, Shemsi Gara operated a giant digger in a Kosovo coal mine, churning up toxic dust that covered his face and got into his airways. Home life wasn't much better: the power plants that the mine supplies constantly spew fumes over his village.

Gara died on Sunday aged 55 after three years of treatment failed to contain his lung cancer. In his final days, unable to walk, he lay on a couch at home, gaunt and in pain, as a machine pumped oxygen into his dying body.

"I kept telling him I wanted to help, but I couldn't," said his wife Xhejlane, who mourned in her living room with friends on Wednesday. "He would say 'Only God knows the pain I have'."

As much of the world moves to reduce the use of fossil fuels, pollution in Western Balkan countries remains stubbornly high due to household heating, outdated coal plants, old cars, and a lack of money to tackle the problem.

Relatively small cities such as Serbia's capital Belgrade and Bosnia's capital Sarajevo have frequently topped daily global pollution charts, according to websites that track air quality worldwide.

This has costly health impacts, and could also jeopardise such countries' prospects of joining the European Union, which has stricter emissions standards.

"There are no resources in the region for the reduction of air pollution," said Mirko Popovic, a director with the Renewables and Environmental Regulatory Institute think-tank in Belgrade.

In the EU, net greenh...
[Short citation of 8% of the original article]