On 22 and 23 April in Sarajevo, EU4Green brought together ministries, environmental agencies, Producer Responsibility Organisations (PROs), and European experts for the EPR Exchange: Best Practice Models and WB6 Peer Learning – a hybrid semi-regional workshop dedicated to one of the most important building blocks of a functioning circular economy.

Extended Producer Responsibility shifts accountability for the full life cycle of a product – from design, through collection, to recycling and disposal – onto the producers themselves. Done well, it relieves pressure on municipal budgets, drives better product design, and turns waste streams into resources. Done poorly, it remains a paper compliance exercise. The workshop was built around exactly that distinction.

The first day opened with a peer-learning round in which representatives from North Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina shared the current state of play in their early-stage EPR systems – scope, obligated producers, allocation of responsibilities between ministries, agencies, municipalities, and PROs, and the realities of fee-setting and financing. Albania presented its more advanced institutional setup, walking participants through the political decision process, governance model, and the path from legal framework to implementation.

The Bosnian session went deeper into how the system operates on the ground, with contributions from Federal Ministry of Environment and tourism (Sabina Sijaric), PRO Ekopak (packaging and packaging waste, Naida Dacic), PRO KIMTEC (WEEE, Erkin Medjedovic), and the Environmental Protection Fund of FBiH covering waste tyres, end-of-life vehicles, waste oils, and batteries (Elma Hadžić Ramić).

European experience came from two angles. Krisztina Wégner presented “EPR 2.0: From Formal Compliance to Real System Performance,” drawing on the North Macedonia Twinning Project to ask what it actually takes to design an EPR system that works. Baptiste Roubaud from Citeo shared the French model for household packaging and paper – one of the most established EPR schemes in Europe.

Day two moved the conversation out of the conference room and into the field. Participants visited the recycling yard in Ilijaš, operated by KJKP RAD and managed by Alan Šerak, followed by the Rudar Kompany recycling facility in Breza led by director Emir Hasanspahić – two very different examples of how recovered materials are processed in practice.

The EPR Exchange is part of EU4Green’s wider effort to support the green transition in the Western Balkans through peer learning, technical exchange, and practical cooperation between the region and the EU.