The Verkhovna Rada supported the draft law on maintaining a register of strategic environmental assessment

At the plenary session on Tuesday, the Verkhovna Rada adopted in the second reading the bill No. 5159 about amendments to some laws of Ukraine regarding the introduction of liability for violations of the strategic environmental assessment.

The deputy chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on finance, tax and customs policy, deputy from the Golos faction, Yaroslav Zheleznyak, reported about it on his Telegram.

The bill was supported by 232 deputies.

In the explanatory note to the draft law, it is noted that due to the lack of responsibility for non-compliance with the requirements of the law, there is a systematic violation of it. Therefore, it is necessary to establish responsibility for violations of legislation, in particular for:

• non-fulfillment of a strategic environmental assessment;
• violation of the procedure for carrying out a strategic environmental assessment, including the procedure for informing the public, conducting a public discussion and taking into account its results;
• failure to take into account the results of the strategic environmental assessment while approving state planning documents;
• violation of the procedure for monitoring consequences implementing environmental state planning document.

Thus, the proposed changes empower the customers of state planning documents to enter strategic environmental assessment reports into the Unified register of strategic environmental assessment reports.

“The report on the strategic environmental assessment shall be entered into the Unified register of strategic environmental assessment, access to which is free, open and provided via the Internet. The procedure for maintaining the Unified register of strategic environmental assessment is determined by the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine,” the text of the draft law dated February 25, 2022 states, placed on the parliament’s website.

As GMK Center reported earlier, at the end of March, the European Business Association performed for simplifying the environmental impact assessment (EIA) procedure under martial law: revising the requirements for the preparation of reports, shortening the procedure itself and introducing the possibility of operational amendments.