Environmental Protection and Economic Growth as Pillars of Sustainable Development in Serbia

The authors started with the basic question, how did economic growth in Serbia affect environmental protection? In this paper, the emphasis is placed on the two pillars of sustainable development that are mutually connected—environmental protection and economy. In the past twenty years, Serbia has based its economic policy on attracting foreign direct investments from all over the world. This was and remains the basic economic strategy of the Republic of Serbia, which resulted in, on the one hand, limited economic growth with a reduced unemployment rate, but also environmental devastation, that is primarily related to air quality. The general subject of the analysis is air pollution and foreign direct investments in Serbia, in the period from 2016 to the end of 2023. Considering that the issue of air protection is multidisciplinary, the authors use several points of view: medicine, biology (ecology), political science, and public policy analysis. Authors conclude that the greatest damage to the environment in Serbia is caused by thermal power plants, to which coal mines and ash dumps are linked, but the other biggest polluters of the environment are foreign companies. Foreign direct investors in Serbia often do not comply with environmental laws, rules, and standards in their production and pollute the entire environment, especially the air in the towns and cities where they produce.