In recent years, the environmental legislation of Ukraine has been dramatically changed. In 2017, Ukraine adopted laws "On Environmental Impact Assessment" and “On Strategic Environmental Assessment”. They came into force in December, the same year and became the “first robin” as a result of the entry into effect of the Association Agreement between Ukraine and the European Union.
In recent years, the environmental legislation of Ukraine has been dramatically changed. In 2017, Ukraine adopted laws "On Environmental Impact Assessment" and “On Strategic Environmental Assessment”. They came into force in December, the same year and became the “first robin” as a result of the entry into effect of the Association Agreement between Ukraine and the European Union.
Under these laws, all the enterprises in the country should consider ecological risks when taking any decisions. This resulted in numerous audits of the whole array of industrial facilities in Ukraine. Further – it is more; the total value of the “environmental” reforms is near $200B. Indirectly, those changes will touch other industries – metallurgy, chemical industry, and agribusiness.
However, those costs are meaningless since the environmental pollution results in more than 16% premature deaths in Ukraine annually. According to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation in 2016, air pollution led to 58,000 premature deaths. Even the professionals that work in the manufacturing agrees that environmental reforms are crucial for Ukraine nowadays.
The next step to ecological improvement in our country is total transformations of the environmental legislation according to the European standards. The Ministry of Ecology of Ukraine and German Ministry of Environment signed cooperation agreement in this field in early summer 2019. It’s interesting that this initiative got positive feedbacks from the industrialists themselves. According to one of the TV channels, native manufacturers are speaking out about the necessity of the Ukrainian green industry’s update and new eco-techs integrations. The specialists are offered to use the European states’ approach (the Czech Republic, for example) were private companies get funds for the purpose of the modernization of production.
In Ukraine, the adaptation of the best available techs and governance that have proved to be successful in European manufacturing is a priority to date, in the view of the Ukrainian Ministry of Ecology. Then officials promise to amend the law that will be an incentive for its implementation in companies. One of such changes will be the reduction of environmental taxes. According to Deputy Minister of Environment and Natural Resources of Ukraine Mykolai Kuzyo, it will not only have a good impact on the ecology but also enhance the competitiveness of the modernized industrial facilities. The EU countries choose their foreign partners carefully and the enterprises that have not fulfilled several of the terms and requirements under the EU could have problems with regard to foreign trade. The EU allocates 10 million euros for our country within the framework of the project entitled “The Best Available Techs and Governance” in order to reform environmental legislation. Let us remember that this program successfully works in Germany for decades.
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