The citizens' initiative "Stop for Usje" took to the street - again. The trigger is the request by the Titan Usje cement plant to keep operating with an A-integrated permit based on 2007 standards, instead of aligning with European norms and the best available techniques.

According to the initiative, the version of the request published for public review not only fails to meet future standards - it contains less information than the existing permit. "The document sets limit values for just three pollutants, identical to those in the old permit and up to eight times higher than current EU standards," the "Stop for Usje" group claims. Worse still: there are no provisions for monitoring dangerous pollutants such as heavy metals, dioxins and furans.

The initiative's message is blunt: "With a request like this, 'Usje' practically wants to keep poisoning the people of Skopje with outdated standards that don't comply with European norms. The Ministry of Environment must not adopt a non-compliant and unlawful permit." The protest moved from Parliament to the Ministry, under the slogan "No to a new permit for Usje by old rules."

On the other side, Environment Minister Muhamet Hodža claims the renewed permit for Usje "will be under the new law on the control of industrial emissions," that is, under stricter environmental standards, the same as for all operators with A-permits. Two claims, one and the same permit, diametrically opposed stories about what it actually contains.

And there's the knot the people of Skopje breathe in every day: who is telling the truth? If the permit really is under new, stricter standards, why do the citizens who read the document see figures from 2007? And if the citizens are right, why does the minister claim otherwise? The air over Skopje has been among the most polluted in Europe for decades - and while the institutions and the factory exchange reassurances, children's lungs don't wait for the legal dispute to end. The question isn't a technical one. The question is whose interest weighs more - the health of the city, or the extended life of an old permit.