“Public consultations” without citizens: CGES continues to ignore the people living under its transmission lines

The Montenegrin Transmission System (CGES) is continuing its decades-long practice of pushing high-voltage projects into populated areas and tourist regions without informing the public and without any meaningful consultation with local communities whose houses and land lie directly under massive transmission lines and high-voltage wires, the Citizens’ Initiative (CI) “Save Brezna” stated in a press release.

“Residents of several villages in Piva were taken aback and shocked by information they happened to learn by chance – that CGES is preparing a project for the construction of an international 400 kV Brezna – Crkvičko Polje – Sarajevo transmission line, with a 400/220 kV Crkvičko Polje substation, which is supposed to pass through several settlements in Piva, from Brezna to Crkvičko Polje and up to the border with Bosnia and Herzegovina,” CI “Save Brezna” said.

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The residents of Brezna, together with locals from other villages along the transmission line route, point out that CGES published on its website, only nine days earlier, a notice scheduling so-called public consultations on this project for Thursday, 19 February at 11 a.m. in Plužine.

This, they add, clearly points to an intention to ensure that as few interested people as possible actually show up.

As further stated in the press release, CGES initially tried to completely ignore a written request that the consultations be postponed and rescheduled in the villages along the planned route, that the public consultation period be extended, and that project documentation be provided – and then went on to reject all of these requests.

“We happened to see this notice on the CGES website by accident, and it was published on 10 February – only nine days, six of them working days, before the announced consultations. This concerns a huge, transnational 400 kV project which can have permanent effects on our homes, land, health and on the development of rural tourism to which we are committed, and which is promoted as a strategic priority of the Municipality of Plužine and the whole Piva region. None of the people along the proposed route had ever been informed of the existence of this project, and the same ‘public information’ approach was used in other projects implemented by CGES. Winter period, working day, working hours, a notice hidden on the CGES website, read only by people in CGES,” CI “Save Brezna” stated.

They explain that the appeal to postpone the public consultations and to provide documentation was sent to CGES on 12 February, and that CGES did not even bother to respond until they sent an urgent reminder and informed the EU Delegation in Montenegro, the European Commission and the WBIF (Western Balkans Investment Framework), which approved a grant for the preparation of technical documentation.

“Complete disregard is a decades-long pattern in CGES’s treatment of local communities, their property and their lives. It was the same in the case of the 400 kV Lastva – Pljevlja transmission line, which was routed above our houses, when huge pylons were secretly installed on private land without the knowledge of the owners. They did the same thing when planning the construction of a 400 kV substation in the centre of the village of Gornja Brezna, which is the only village in Piva that is strongly developing, where young people are moving in and building tourist facilities. This substation is planned as the centre of an international energy hub and a hub for renewable energy sources. In the civilised world, such hubs are built offshore or in completely uninhabited regions, where they do not endanger either people or nature,” CI “Save Brezna” said.

They add that only in Montenegro is it possible for a state-owned energy company, with the support of the state, to push such a project into the centre of a tourist village and tourist region, at the expense of the survival, lives and health of an entire human community.

They recall that they have uncovered numerous illegalities, procedural breaches and unlawful influence in the case of the 400 kV Brezna Substation project.

“One of the irregularities – perhaps not the biggest, but certainly the most scandalous from the point of view of any citizen and property owner whose land might end up in the way – is that in the project documentation submitted to the EBRD – the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development – they falsified the facts and stated that within a 2 km radius of the planned substation location ‘there are no residential or commercial buildings’, even though there are more than 150 such structures only within that radius. When we made this information, which is public and available on the EBRD website, known to the Montenegrin media, they launched public accusations against us, labelling us enemies of the state who are undermining the state and them as a ‘respectable company’,” the residents said in the statement.

They recall that, following the complaint lodged by the residents of Brezna with the EBRD, the Bank’s independent IPAM and OCCO mechanisms were activated and that these processes are ongoing, and that the residents expect the EBRD, the European Commission and other credible and relevant international bodies to take seriously the strong arguments and evidence that the construction of an enormous and internationally significant energy hub at the Brezna site could have far-reaching consequences not only for Montenegro, but also for the wider region and for Europe.

They call on CGES to start planning and operating in line with the Constitution, the laws, international conventions and the high standards of donors that provide grants for its projects, such as WBIF.

“Our goal is not to block development, but to ensure that decisions on the location and design of such critical infrastructure are taken transparently, with respect for laws and international standards, and with genuine consideration for the people who live here. The development of energy infrastructure must not come at the expense of the lives and survival of entire human communities and villages that are coming back to life. If work is done professionally, honourably and fairly, and in the interests of the state and its citizens, it is always possible to find optimal and sustainable solutions,” CI “Save Brezna” concluded.