or years, the green transition in the Western Balkans has been framed as a moral imperative or an environmental aspiration. At the Western Balkans 2030 conference, it became clear that it is neither. It is a structural necessity, and one that now asserts itself with urgency. What emerged from the panel was a portrait of a region that recognises the scale of the challenge yet still struggles with its practical consequences.
The United Kingdom’s journey toward eliminating coal served as the cautionary benchmark. Ambassador Edward Ferguson described the transformation not as a technological marvel but as a regulatory revolution. Britain moved quickly because it removed obstacles that slowed good projects and streamlined processes that had long made renewable investment unnecessarily complicated. It was a reminder that the Western Balkans’ energy transition will not fail for lack of ambition, but for lack of execution.
The urgency deepened with the figure presented by Arslan Umut Ergezer of the Regional Cooperation Council: around €40 billion will be required for climate adaptation alone. The number landed with a kind of quiet finality. The region will not find this scale of funding through public budgets or through donor generosity. Private capital is indispensable, but it will come only if policies are coherent, incentives predictable, and regional cooperation real rather than rhetorical.
Serbia’s energy transition, presented by Assistant Minister Maja Vukadinović, illustrated the complexity of the path ahead.
With coal still responsible for nearly two-thirds of electricity production, the country cannot dismantle its existing system until new capacities and storage are fully established. Rather than offering promises detached from reality, she outlined tangible projects already in motion: a 1 GW solar-battery facility, the development of hydrogen storage, the Bistrica pumped-storage plant, and a large solar-thermal energy system in Novi Sad designed to shift seasonal energy use. Her message was grounded and sober — transition is happening, but it must be sequenced with precision to avoid destabilising the grid.
From the perspective of the region’s largest energy company, EPS General Manager Dušan Živković captured the core dilemma with stark clarity. Energy systems do not operate in a vacuum; they underpin the functioning of societies. Transition that moves faster than infrastructure can support becomes a threat, not a solution. Stability, he emphasised, is not the enemy of progress. It is the condition that makes progress possible.
What the panel ultimately revealed is that the green transition is not measured by target years or abstract commitments. It is measured by whether the region can maintain security of supply while building an entirely different energy future. It is a test not of rhetoric but of sequencing, coordination and political courage. And it is a test that will define the Western Balkans’ economic competitiveness long after 2030 passes.