Slovenia did something rarely seen in the Balkans - before making the decision to close the Velenje mine, the state calculated how much it would really cost. The result is clear: 1.13 billion euros for closing the mine, remediating the land, protecting the environment and a just transition for the miners.

According to the adopted legal solution, coal extraction is to end by 2033 at the latest, but the obligations of the state and the company will not end then. On the contrary, the closure process will continue for at least another twelve years, that is until 2045, when the final winding-down of the company that runs the mine is envisaged.

The funds will not be spent only on closing the production. A large part of them is earmarked for the continuous maintenance of the abandoned shafts, monitoring of groundwater, prevention of land subsidence, remediation of damaged surfaces, recultivation of the area and securing the conditions for an economic transformation of a region that lived off coal for decades.

A logical question arises - has anyone in Macedonia calculated how much it costs to close a single mine?

How much will draining the shafts cost after extraction stops? How much money will be needed for recultivating the tailings, treating the polluted water, monitoring the environment and securing the safety of the sites in the coming decades? Who will cover those costs - the companies or the citizens through the state budget?

While here the talk is most often about opening new mines and about the economic gains from their operation, almost no one talks about the final bill that always comes at the end - the bill for closing the mine.

The Slovenes did that calculation and made it public. In Macedonia the public still does not know how much it would cost to close Sasa, Toranica, Buchim or Zletovo. Without such analyses neither the real economic value of mining nor the risk left for future generations can be realistically assessed.

That is why it is time for the competent institutions to answer a simple question: if production at some mine stops tomorrow, do we know how much its safe closure will cost and who will pay that bill?