EU condemns Poroshenko’s veto of the law on ecology
The head of the Energy-Transport-Environment Operations section of the EU Delegation to Ukraine, Johannes Baur, stated during a conference in Kyiv that the veto on the Law on the Strategic Environmental Assessment imposed by the president of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko, isn’t good news on the eve of the Ukraine-EU summit that will take place on November 24.
“It isn’t good news on the way to closer integration with Ukraine, and it isn’t good news on the eve of the summit that will take place at the end of this month. It is a part of the fulfillment of Ukraine’s obligations under the Espoo Convention [Convention on Environmental Impacts Assessment in a Transboundary Context], where the law we are talking about is essential if we expect progress in the field of the environment. I also want to address the Ukrainian authorities: Work on adopting this law as soon as possible,” Baur noted.
The Law on the Strategic Environmental Assessment is a document that Ukraine agreed to adopt within the framework of the Association Agreement and the Treaty of Accession of Ukraine to the Energy Community. On October 31 the president of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko, vetoed this law and returned it to the parliament with his own proposals.
As previously reported, the G7 ambassadors wrote an angry letter to Poroshenko, in which they warned him of dangerous legislative initiatives that could undermine all previous efforts to combat corruption. And on the eve of the summit, the first deputy chairman of the Verkhovna Rada, Iryna Herashchenko, reported disagreements between Kyiv and the European Union about the Donbas.