Archive:Enlargement countries - environment statistics

Data extracted in February 2020.

Planned article update: April 2021.

Highlights

Among the EU candidate countries and potential candidates, Albania and Montenegro were the largest generators of municipal waste relative to population size (around 530 kg per inhabitant) in 2018. In the EU-27, the quantity was slightly lower (492 kg per inhabitant).

In recent years, the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions was more rapid in Serbia, Montenegro and North Macedonia than it was in the EU -27.

Development of total greenhouse gas emissions, 2007-2017
(2007 = 100; based on CO2 equivalents)
Source: Eurostat (env_air_gge)

Dynamic chart file missing

This article is part of an online publication and provides information on a range of statistics related to the environment for the European Union (EU) enlargement countries, in other words the candidate countries and potential candidates. Montenegro, North Macedonia, Albania, Serbia and Turkey currently have candidate country status, while Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo* are potential candidates.

This article provides some information in relation to climate change, waste and water, presenting indicators such as the level of greenhouse gas emissions, municipal waste generated and waste treated, and water abstraction.

Full article

Greenhouse gas and carbon dioxide emissions

The gases considered in this article as greenhouse gases are carbon dioxide (CO₂), nitrous oxide (N₂O), methane (CH₄), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs) and sulphur hexafluoride (SF₆). The indicator in Figure 1 shows the development in the combined emissions of these gases (as measured in carbon dioxide equivalents). The basic data are annual emissions estimated and reported according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) guidelines.

Figure 1: Development of total greenhouse gas emissions, 2007-2017
(2007 = 100; based on CO2 equivalents)
Source: Eurostat (env_air_gge)

The index for total greenhouse gas emissions in the EU-27 reflects a regular fall in such emissions between 2007 and 2014; there was a particularly large fall in 2009, in large part related to the global financial and economic crisis and the associated reduction in levels of economic activity, followed by a rebound in 2010. Between 2015 and 2017 the level of emissions was stable or increased. By 2017, the index was 14.2 % lower than it had been in 2007.

A rapid increase in greenhouse gas emissions was reported for Bosnia and Herzegovina between 2007 and 2011, followed by a sharp fall in 2012 and then further increases in 2013 and 2014 such that between 2007 and 2014 the overall increase was 38.7 %. The time series for Turkey reflects an almost unbroken series of annual increases in greenhouse gas emissions during the period shown — therefore also during the crisis — with the only falls recorded in 2008 and 2013; the overall increase in emissions in Turkey between 2007 and 2017 was 34.4 %. The time series for Kosovo start in 2008 and show a relatively strong increase in 2009 and then a subsequent decline through until 2012; a series of increases until 2016 was followed by a sharp fall in emissions in 2017 such that the level of emissions in 2017 was slightly lower (1.6 %) than it had been in 2008. Like the EU-27, both Serbia and Montenegro recorded an overall decline in greenhouse gas emissions after 2007 (time series available until 2017 for Serbia and 2015 for Montenegro), with a particularly strong fall in 2009 in Montenegro, reflecting a large reduction in industrial output during the crisis. The time series for North Macedonia is shorter, running until 2014 and shows a rather volatile development, with a much lower level of emissions in 2014 than in 2007.

Carbon dioxide is one of the greenhouse gases: while it has the lowest global warming potential of the six greenhouse gases, emissions of this gas in the EU-27 were considerably higher than for any of the other greenhouse gases such that, even when adjusted for global warming potential, the impact of the emissions of carbon dioxide were far greater than for any of the other greenhouse gases. As a consequence, the developments shown in Figure 2 reflect to a large extent those seen in Figure 1: Bosnia and Herzegovina as well as Turkey reported the largest increases in emissions while Montenegro and Serbia — like the EU-27 — reported declines.

Figure 2: Development of carbon dioxide emissions, 2007-2017
(2007 = 100)
Source: Eurostat (env_ac_ainah_r2)

Municipal waste

Municipal waste is mainly produced by households, though similar wastes from sources such as distributive trades, offices and public institutions are included in the data presented; waste from agriculture and from industry is excluded from this indicator. The amount of municipal waste generated consists of waste collected by or on behalf of municipal authorities and disposed of through the waste management system. For areas not covered by a municipal waste collection scheme, the reporting countries estimate the amount of waste generated.

In 2018, the average amount of municipal waste generated per inhabitant in the EU-27 was 492 kilograms (kg), in other words, just less than half a tonne. This was somewhat more than the amount generated per person in 2013 (478 kg per inhabitant). Among the candidate countries and potential candidates, the average quantity of municipal waste ranged from 226 kg per inhabitant in Kosovo to 427 kg per inhabitant in Turkey (2017 data), with Montenegro and Albania (530 kg and 531 kg per inhabitant) above this range and also above the EU-27 average (see Figure 3). The quantity of municipal waste generated per inhabitant increased in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Turkey between the years shown in Figure 3, while it fell in Serbia and most notably in Kosovo.

Figure 3: Quantity of municipal waste generated, 2013 and 2018
(kilograms per inhabitant)
Source: Eurostat (env_wasmun)

Waste can be treated in a number of ways, with waste treatment processes categorised either as disposal (including for example, landfill and incineration without energy recovery) or as recovery (including for example, material recycling, composting and incineration with energy recovery). For the candidate countries and potential candidates, data are collected for both types of incineration (with and without energy recovery) as well as for the remainder of disposal and the remainder of recovery, as can be seen from Table 1. In the EU-27, some 7 % of waste was incinerated in 2016, with an even split of the remainder between disposal (47 %) and recovery (47 %). In most candidate countries and potential candidates (no data available for North Macedonia), the proportion of waste treated by recovery (other than energy recovery) was relatively low. Turkey was a notable exception as 35 % of its waste in 2018 was treated by (non-energy) recovery. As incineration was not widespread among the candidate countries and potential candidates — its share peaking at 5 % in Albania in 2018 — the vast majority of waste was treated by disposal.

Table 1: Quantity of waste treated, 2013 and 2018
Source: Eurostat (env_wastrt)

In 2018, the proportion of persons served regularly by municipal waste collection services ranged from 66 % in Albania to 87 % in Serbia, with the proportion in Turkey (93 %) above this range. In nearly all the candidate countries and potential candidates for which data are available, the proportion of persons from whom waste was regularly collected increased between the years shown in Figure 4; Bosnia and Herzegovina was an exception as its proportion remained unchanged.

Figure 4: Proportion of persons served by municipal waste collection services, 2013 and 2018
(%)
Source: Eurostat

Water and wastewater

Freshwater abstraction as a percentage of available resources (as shown in Figure 5) is based on the resources available over the long term, a minimum of 20 years. For the four candidate countries for which data are available, this ratio ranged from just 1.4 % in Bosnia and Herzegovina (2017 data) to 25.4 % in Turkey (2016 data; note that there are methodological differences for the Turkish data). Between the years shown in the figure, Turkey, Serbia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina reported increases in this ratio, whereas North Macedonia reported a decrease.

Figure 5: Total freshwater abstraction as a share of available resources, 2013 and 2018
(%)
Source: Eurostat (env_wat_abs) and (env_wat_res)

In all but one of the five candidate countries and potential candidates shown in Figure 6, the proportion of the population connected to urban wastewater treatment systems was relatively low: in Turkey, it reached 74 % in 2018 whereas the next highest proportion was 27 % in Albania. However, between the two reference periods shown in the figure the share of the population connected to urban wastewater treatment systems increased in all of the candidate countries and potential candidates for which a comparison is available — albeit only marginally in Kosovo. The most notable increase was in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Figure 6: Proportion of population connected to urban wastewater treatment, 2013 and 2018
(%)
Source: Eurostat (env_ww_con)

Source data for tables and graphs

Enlargement countries — environment: tables and figures

Data sources

Data for the enlargement countries are collected for a wide range of indicators each year through a questionnaire that is sent by Eurostat to candidate countries or potential candidates. A network of contacts has been established for updating these questionnaires, generally within the national statistical offices, but potentially including representatives of other data-producing organisations (for example, central banks or government ministries). The statistics shown in this article are made available free-of-charge on Eurostat’s website, together with other socio-economic indicators collected as part of this initiative.

Eurostat, in close partnership with the European Environment Agency (EEA), provides environmental statistics, accounts and indicators supporting the development, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the EU’s environmental policies, strategies and initiatives. Data on greenhouse gas emissions as reported under the United Nations framework convention on climate change (UNFCCC) are collected by the EEA. Eurostat collects official statistics in relation to a broad selection of subject areas, for example, waste, water, material flows and environmental protection expenditure.

The Kyoto Protocol, an environmental agreement adopted by many of the parties to the UNFCCC in 1997 to curb global warming, covers six greenhouse gases: carbon dioxide (CO₂), methane (CH₄) and nitrous oxide (N₂O), which are non-fluorinated gases, and hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs) and sulphur hexafluoride (SF₆), which are fluorinated gases. Converting them to carbon dioxide equivalents makes it possible to compare them and to determine their individual and total contributions to global warming. A new agreement on greenhouse gas emissions was reached in Paris in late 2015; this provides the basis for emissions mitigation and adaptation from 2020 onwards.

Eurostat’s data on waste is collected from EU Member States on the basis of a Regulation on waste statistics (2150/2002/EC) and is published every two years in line with common methodological recommendations. Landfill is the deposit of waste into or onto land; it includes specially engineered landfill sites and temporary storage of over one year on permanent sites. The definition covers both landfill in internal sites, in other words, where a generator of waste is carrying out its own waste disposal at the place of generation, and in external sites.

Tables in this article use the following notation:

Value in italics	data value is forecasted, provisional or estimated and is therefore likely to change;
:	not available.

Context

The key objectives of the EU’s environmental policy are:

to protect, conserve and enhance the EU’s natural capital;
to turn the EU into a resource-efficient, green, and competitive low-carbon economy;
to safeguard the EU’s citizens from environment-related pressures and risks to health and well-being.

Within the resource-efficient Europe initiative, there were three specific targets related to the environment and climate change to be achieved by 2020, namely:

greenhouse gas emissions should fall to 20 % lower than in 1990;
20 % of the energy used in the EU should be from renewables; and
there should be a 20 % increase in energy efficiency.

In December 2015, a global [1] was reached at the 2015 United Nations’ climate change conference in Paris; this was signed by 174 parties in New York in April 2016 and opened for ratification. The agreement sets out an action plan to avoid dangerous climate change by limiting global warming to well below 2°C.

Environment action programmes have guided the development of the EU’s environment policy since the early 1970s. The current EU environment action programme — referred to as the 7th EAP — was adopted by Decision 1386/2013 of the European Parliament and Council in November 2013 under the title Living well, within the limits of our planet; work has begun to prepare for the 8th EAP.

Climate action is at the heart of the European Green Deal — an ambitious package of measures ranging from ambitiously cutting greenhouse gas emissions, to investing in cutting-edge research and innovation, to preserving Europe’s natural environment. The European Green Deal provides a new growth strategy that is designed to transform the EU into a modern, resource-efficient and competitive economy where there are no net emissions of greenhouse gases by 2050, economic growth is decoupled from resource use, and no person and no place is left behind. It provides a roadmap for making the EU’s economy sustainable, turning climate and environmental challenges into opportunities.

While basic principles and institutional frameworks for producing statistics are already in place, the enlargement countries are expected to increase progressively the volume and quality of their data and to transmit these data to Eurostat in the context of the EU enlargement process. EU standards in the field of statistics require the existence of a statistical infrastructure based on principles such as professional independence, impartiality, relevance, confidentiality of individual data and easy access to official statistics; they cover methodology, classifications and standards for production.

Eurostat has the responsibility to ensure that statistical production of the enlargement countries complies with the EU acquis in the field of statistics. To do so, Eurostat supports the national statistical offices and other producers of official statistics through a range of initiatives, such as pilot surveys, training courses, traineeships, study visits, workshops and seminars, and participation in meetings within the European Statistical System (ESS). The ultimate goal is the provision of harmonised, high-quality data that conforms to European and international standards.

Additional information on statistical cooperation with the enlargement countries is provided here.

Notes

* This designation is without prejudice to positions on status, and is in line with UNSCR 1244/1999 and the ICJ Opinion on the Kosovo declaration of independence.