Category: Land, water and workers
Period: from 22 Feb 2024
Outcome: No one investigated (as of 22 May 2026)
To clear space for wind farms in Banat, the Government of Serbia in 2024 adopted a report by the Republic Hydrometeorological Service on relocating the weather radar from Samoš. In December 2025, the Assembly of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina amended the spatial plan for the Vršac Mountains so that the radar could be placed on Gudurički vrh, the highest point in Vojvodina. The plan was paid for by Wind park Samoš, the investor behind the largest planned wind farm in Serbia, and about eight hectares of the peak were moved to a less strict protection regime. Residents of Vršac, the city assembly and local associations say they will take legal action to have the decision annulled.
The Samoš radar centre near Kovačica, run by the Republic Hydrometeorological Service, has been used for hail defence for a quarter of a century. A special decree bans wind turbines within less than ten kilometres of the radar.
In that area, in the municipalities of Alibunar and Kovačica, the company Wind park Samoš plans a wind farm with 142 turbines and 923 megawatts, the largest in Serbia. The amendments to the spatial plan state their first goal as “securing space for the construction of wind farms in Banat” by relocating the radar; according to the plan, this “opens up space for the wind farm to be built”.
On 22 February 2024, the Government of Serbia adopted, by a conclusion, the RHMZ report on relocating the radar. On 17 December 2024, the Assembly of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina decided to amend the Vršac Mountains plan through an expedited procedure to make way for the radar on Gudurički vrh, and the drafting was paid for by Wind park Samoš.
After a re-evaluation of the protection launched in July 2025 by the Ministry of Environmental Protection, about eight hectares on the plateau for the radar and the road were moved from the first to the second level of protection. The plan was prepared by the national agency and the Provincial Secretariat for Urban Planning, using documentation from the company AAEC Energy Consulting, and the Assembly adopted it on 17 December 2025.
According to the plan, Gudurički vrh will have a steel tower at least 30 metres high (35 with the dome), an access road 6.38 kilometres long and 3.5 metres wide, a fuel oil tank and a buffer zone of two kilometres.
The Vršac Mountains have been a protected area since 2022. Under the first level of protection, building structures and roads is prohibited; under the second, only structures for managing the area, its forests and existing infrastructure are allowed. RHMZ claims that Gudurički vrh is, alongside Fruška gora, the best location for a radar in Vojvodina and that the radar does not harm nature.
According to N1, the wind farm's investor is not officially known. The documents were drawn up by AAEC Energy Consulting, a small Novi Sad firm which, according to the Serbian Business Registers Agency (APR), is owned by a company belonging to Lazar Lazendić from Žabalj; according to N1, Wind park Samoš is also his. According to the Nova.rs portal, Lazendić is linked to at least 18 companies, and in May 2025 he signed contracts with EPS for the purchase of electricity from the "Alibunar 1" and "Alibunar 2" wind farms.
Lazendić declined to comment on the case to N1.
Since July 2025, the Stanište Ecological Centre and 31 other organisations have been demanding that the province withdraw the plan amendment and that the radar be built outside protected areas. At the end of September, the Vršac City Assembly, with the votes of an SNS-led majority, adopted their demand word for word; Democratic Party MP Dragana Rakić had earlier submitted the same demand.
Residents protested on 6 October 2025, and in March 2026 they organised a protest climb to the peak. The public hearing on the draft on 9 October was held online; according to the civic groups, all substantive objections were rejected and participants had their microphones muted.
After the plan was adopted, civic groups from Vršac said they would take legal action to have the decision overturned and did not rule out a criminal complaint. RERI announced that, if the plan was adopted, it would ask the Constitutional Court to review its constitutionality; whether it has done so is not known.
In May 2026 there was no visible work at the site. Provincial authorities and local officials did not answer journalists' questions.