An official of the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources of Ukraine illegally refuses to issue permits for waste processing activities to existing enterprises, requiring them to obtain an environmental impact assessment (EIA) report, which is not required by law.
This situation was reported in the Association of Environmental Professionals (PAEW)
What problems arose
The experts informed that currently there are a number of serious difficulties with the issuance of permits in the field of waste management.
First of all, economic entities massively receive 5-6 unmotivated refusals to issue a permit for waste treatment operations signed by an official of the Ministry of Environment. Moreover, each time the negative answer is based on new grounds.
Secondly, among such reasons for refusals of existing enterprises was the absence of a conclusion of the OVD.
Why such actions of the Ministry of Environment official are illegal
The PAEW explained that Article 17 of the Law of Ukraine "On Environmental Impact Assessment" provides that "conclusions of the state environmental examination received to entry into force of this Law, remain valid and have the status of an environmental impact assessment conclusion".
Accordingly, an operating enterprise that received a state expert opinion before this law came into force, and did not make any changes to its activities from that moment, may not worry about conducting an ATS.
Specialists of the Association reminded that the Ministry of Environment has already issued about 30 out of 37 licenses for hazardous waste management in 2024 based on the conclusions of the state environmental examination.
"Today, with a change in the management structure, the Ministry of Environment has decided to issue massive refusals to issue permits for waste treatment operations, which essentially duplicate the content of the license?" – asked PAEW.
The experts also emphasized that in accordance with Part 21 of Article 42 of the Law of Ukraine "On Waste Management", the Ministry does not have the right, during the re-examination of the application and the documents and information attached to it, to refuse to issue a permit for reasons that were not previously specified in the refusal decision in issuing a permit. A similar norm is contained in paragraph 5 of Article 4-1 of the Law of Ukraine "On the Permit System in the Field of Economic Activity" (with the exception of non-removal or incomplete removal by the applicant of the reasons that became the basis for the preliminary refusal).
The Association of Environmental Professionals PAEW informed that they have appealed to the Ministry of Environment for an explanation regarding the inconsistency of the actions of the Ministry official with the requirements of the current legislation. They consider them abuse of office. They also advised businesses to go to the government and the courts and protect their rights.
As EcoPolitic reported earlier, in the Ministry of Environment offer to extend the validity period of waste management declarations.
