Representatives of the Prosecutors Association of Serbia participated in the regional conference “Waste Crime: Strengthening the fight against environmental crime by enhancing cross-regional judicial cooperation among Western Balkans, Eastern Partnership countries, and EU Member States”, held on 20–21 May 2026 in Zagreb, Croatia.
The conference was organized by the Eurojust Western Balkans Criminal Justice (WBCJ) Project and the European Network of Prosecutors for the Environment (ENPE), with the aim of strengthening international judicial cooperation in combating environmental crime.
The event brought together prosecutors and experts from Albania, Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Finland, France, Ireland, Moldova, Montenegro, the Netherlands, North Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, and Ukraine, as well as representatives of Eurojust, ENPE, EMPACT, and the Council of Europe.
The first day of the conference focused on the new EU Environmental Crime Directive and the Council of Europe Convention on the Protection of the Environment through Criminal Law, with special attention given to new legal tools and their practical impact on prosecutors and international cooperation. Panel discussions and working groups addressed topics such as financial investigations in environmental crime cases, the implementation of new European legal instruments, and the links between organized crime and illegal logging.
A representative of the Serbian Prosecutors Association, Dragana Đukić, a prosecutor at the Basic Public Prosecutor’s Office in Novi Sad, delivered a presentation on the concluded environmental crime case “Magacin 50”, sharing experiences from the proceedings, the challenges encountered in prosecution, and the importance of international cooperation in environmental protection cases.
On the second day, participants attended a field visit to an illegal waste dump in Poznanovec, where they were introduced to practical examples of cooperation between prosecution authorities, law enforcement, and inspection bodies in environmental crime cases.
