THE IMPLEMENTATION OF EUROPEAN UNION NATURE PROTECTION LEGISLATION IN MACEDONIA

Nature protection is an important part of environmental activities in the field on protection and improvement of the environment. Activities, measures and standards in the nature protection should be drafted in the strategic documents. The strategic documents can be implemented only with the accurately and comprehensive legislation. Legal regulation significantly contributes toward to better nature protection. European Union, as a community with the highest environmental standards, since 1972, has been acting in the improvement of common nature protection activities which are stipulated in the common legislation. Besides the problems with the practical implementation, Macedonia has been harmonizing its environmental legislation since 2004, a year before obtaining the candidate status for the membership of the EU. This harmonization has been moving relatively successful. Nature protection legislation has been harmonizing slower compared to the other environmental sectors. The same situation is with the practical implementation of nature protection legislation, although The Law on nature protection, adopted in 2004, is one of the first adopted laws in the sphere of the environment. It is caused by the numerous of subjective and objective reasons. The Law on nature protection has been changed and amended seven times. After it’s entering into force there were adopted a small number of strategic documents and sub law legal acts. The main aim of this paper is to analyze the process of the harmonization of national nature protection legislation with the EU legislation and the possibilities for the acceleration of this process. Also the paper gives some recommendations for the future improvement of the Macedonian, s nature protection legislation and its more successful practical implementation.