On Thursday, November 3, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine approved in the second reading the government bill No. 5159 "On amendments to certain laws of Ukraine regarding the introduction of liability for violation of the procedure for carrying out a strategic environmental assessment."
This document improves the strategic environmental assessment (SEA) procedure, increases its transparency, and also introduces responsibility for its violations, reports Ministry of Environment on Telegram.
Due to the lack of responsibility for non-compliance with the legislation in the sphere of SEA, it was systematically violated.
The report emphasized that SEA is an important tool that helps identify and take into account factors or possible consequences of strategies, policies, programs, other state planning documents on the state of the environment and population health, and integrate environmental requirements into them.
"Despite the war, Ukraine is already preparing for reconstruction today, which, in my opinion, should take place only in a "green" way, taking into account not only possible economic profit, but also environmental consequences in the long term. Therefore, today it is important to prepare the necessary legislative basis for such reconstruction, which should be environmentally friendly. SEA is one of the key tools for ensuring the "green" recovery of the country from the consequences of the war with the Russian Federation," said the Minister of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources of Ukraine, Ruslan Strilets.
He explained that the document provides:
- creation of the Unified Register of Strategic Environmental Assessment;
This will make it possible to systematize and make available to the public information on the strategic environmental assessment of state planning documents;
- giving the State Inspectorate powers to control the implementation of legislative requirements;
- establishment of responsibility for violations in the sphere of SEO.
"In particular, we are talking about responsibility for failure to carry out the SEA, violation of the order of the procedure, failure to take into account its results, etc.," the message says.
As EcoPolitic reported before, experts from "Energy under the dome" analyzed draft law No. 5159 "On the introduction of liability for violation of the procedure for carrying out a strategic environmental assessment". They believe that the document will have a negative impact on the industry.
