President of the Association of Environmental Professionals (PAEW) Liudmyla Tsyhanok has identified 5 critical gaps in the environmental impact assessment procedure in Ukraine that do not meet European standards and complicate the work of investors.
She spoke about how to bring the international tool for making balanced management decisions into line at the Green Democracy School event in Kryvyi Rih, the Office of Sustainable Solutions reports.
Tsyganok emphasized that one of the main principles of management is key performance indicators (KPIs) for each process. This involves constant monitoring of performance and evaluation of the achievement of the desired results.
Among the "national peculiarities" of EIA in Ukraine, she mentioned:
- regulation of economic activity is stricter than in the EU , because EIA covers not only the types of planned activities provided for in Annex I to Directive 2011/92/EC, but also the types of activities provided for in Annex II. As well as activities that are not provided for by these applications.
"Conclusion: The conclusion of the Department of Internal Affairs and Communications in Ukraine is not a single permit document for a single economic activity. This is a permit for 115 types of activities provided for in Part 2 and Part 3 of Art. 3 of the Law "On Environmental Impact Assessment", in particular regarding their change, re-equipment, re-purposing, expansion, etc., the message states.
- the criteria for the need to carry out EIA have been significantly expanded, compared to the requirements of European conventions and directives. European regulations provide EIA only for large deposits, production facilities and other activities that can really significantly affect the environment or are located in environmentally sensitive places;
- screening and scoping – in Ukraine, there are no written requirements regarding issues that must be considered during the environmental assessment of this or that activity;
- the practice of refusing to issue a conclusion, which contradicts the provisions of the Directive;
The notification explained that the authorized body issues a conclusion from the EIA, which determines the admissibility or justifies the inadmissibility of the planned activity and determines the environmental conditions for its implementation. However, the Directive does not provide for the refusal to issue a conclusion, but for the establishment of environmental conditions for its implementation, in case of inadmissibility.
- the law "On environmental impact assessment" gives significant powers to the expert, however, there is no trust in the objectivity and professionalism of such conclusions.
Tsyganok emphasized that in order to bring the Ukrainian Internal Security Service in line with the European one after the victory, it is necessary to:
- review and bring it into line with the European criteria, according to which the necessity of passing the EIA procedure is determined. Attract professional specialists of relevant industries;
- develop a scoping system (determining the scope of research);
- to start work on the development of techniques for predicting the impact on the environment, which are not available (for example, from the calculation of the volume of waste generation);
- to establish responsibility for failure to issue a conclusion from the EIA, in violation of the requirements of regulatory acts;
- to conduct an analysis of the content of the issued conclusions from EIA and to remove from the conclusions absolutely unsubstantiated environmental conditions.
Earlier, EcoPolitic wrote, that the Cabinet of Ministers made changes to the Criteria for determining planned activities, which are not subject to an environmental impact assessment.
As EcoPolitic previously reported, experts of the Association of Environmental Professionals (PAEW) stated that in order to attract foreign investment in the subsoil exploitation industry in Ukraine, it is necessary to introduce honest rules for the sale of special permits.
