Bosnia's Foreign Trade Chamber and the EU4Energy project organized a training program Tuesday in Zenica on "Carbon Emissions Cross-Border Settlement Mechanism (CBAM) and Alignment with the Regulation for Export-Oriented Companies to the European Union: Reporting Guide and obligations of the industry in Bosnia and Herzegovina".

The training was primarily organized for representatives of small and medium-sized companies from the region, and as energy efficiency expert Esma Manic pointed out in her statement to FENA, a total of seven such workshops will be held. Three workshops have already been held in Sarajevo, Banja Luka and Mostar, and on Thursday in Tuzla. One will be held in Tesanj and in Bihac as well, following the great interest of companies.

“The topic of these workshops is cross-border emissions, that is, taxes on cross-border emissions. I don't know how aware the BiH citizens are, that is, businesses exporting to the EU, of the fact that the first reports for the first quarter, which began on October 1, 2023, should be submitted by January 31 of this year. All exporting companies are obliged to submit a report on emissions for the products they export,” Manic pointed out.

The problem, she says, is “quite new”, given that the EU made this decision last year and that it came into force on October 1.

“These emissions will not be subject to payment until December 31, 2025, and from January 1, 2026, companies from the fields of iron, cement, hydrogen, and electricity are obliged to pay for cross-border emissions, which will be based on the reports they submit. This means that every exporter in BiH who has products that are based on what we stated earlier is obliged to submit their reports to their clients in the EU, who will enter the data for them in the European Register to which we, as a non-EU country, don't have access,” said Manic.

She stated that BiH companies that import materials, that is, semi-finished products that will be processed and exported as finished products, must “obtain reports on the emissions contained in the products they took for processing” from foreign companies. Over 70 percent of exports from BiH are made in EU countries.

The Regulation that entered into force on October 1, 2023, mentions sanctions, but they are not fully defined.

“I don't expect that there will be any significant sanctions for the companies, at least in this transitional trial period, and from January 1, 2026, the sanctions will be defined and will certainly not be insignificant,” Manic warned.