As part of its European integration obligations under the Espoo Convention, Ukraine has closed a 20-year dispute with Romania over the implementation of its requirements during the construction of the Danube-Black Sea Canal on the sidelines of the Ninth Meeting of the Parties to the Espoo Convention, Minister of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources Ruslan Strilets said.
“We have done our homework and come a long way in bringing the project in line with the requirements of the Convention. After all, Ukraine cares about good neighborly relations and compliance with international law. We are willing and able to find common ground and correct the mistakes of the past,” he wrote on Facebook from the meeting in Geneva.
Strelets thanked Romanian Minister of Environment, Water and Forestry Mircea Fechet for supporting this historic decision and Moldovan Minister of Environment Iordanca Iordanov for his professional and diplomatic chairmanship of the meeting of the Meeting of the Parties to the Convention.
The Ukrainian minister added that the Ukrainian delegation in Geneva also managed to achieve two more victories, including the refusal to elect a representative of Belarus to the working bodies of the Espoo Convention, which was supported by 34 countries.
“At the 43rd session of the Convention on Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution, Moscow was deprived of the status of host of the Meteorological Center “Vostok” of the EMEP program. This was voted for by 33 countries out of 35 member states. The international environmental research center will now be based at the Jožef Stefan Institute in Ljubljana, Slovenia. We hope that it will soon work in the Ukrainian Hydrometeorological Center!” – Mr. Strelets also wrote.
The Espoo Convention is an international agreement initiated by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, which entered into force in 1997 and is named after the Finnish city of Espoo (or Espoo), where it was signed in 1991. According to the document, the procedure for assessing the environmental impact of potentially hazardous projects should be carried out not only within the state, but also in neighboring countries that may be affected by the impact of these facilities.
As reported, in August 2004, Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma opened the first part of the canal to traffic. At the same time, on September 1, the European Commission protested to Ukraine over the continuation of the construction of the canal in the Danube Delta, which is under UNESCO protection. The European Commission called on Kyiv to stop construction until an assessment of the impact that the canal could have on the environment in the river delta is conducted. In addition, Romania said it would challenge the construction of the canal.
According to the decision of Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, in June 2005, work on deepening the Danube-Black Sea Canal through the Bystryi Estuary was suspended to allow for an expert assessment. The examination by the commission of the Ministry of Environmental Protection of Ukraine found that the canal did not cause any harm to the environment.
Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry emphasized that Ukraine proceeds from the premise that the resumption of navigation in the lower Danube is a sovereign right of the state and is aimed at restoring the situation that historically existed in this region before 1994.
At the time, the Ukrainian side claimed that its position was confirmed by international experts during a visit to the actual site of the work in the Danube Delta. Thus, since the beginning of the restoration work, representatives of the Ramsar, Berne, Aarhus, Espoo, International Commission for the Protection of the Danube River, European Commission, Council of Europe, and World Wildlife Fund have visited the lower Danube. The mission’s recommendations contained three main requirements for Ukraine: not to start work on the second stage of the project until the environmental impact assessment of the second stage is completed; to hold public hearings on the environmental impact of the project; and to conduct systematic environmental monitoring during the project, which should involve international experts and representatives of Romania. According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ukraine has fulfilled all three requirements.
However, the dispute continued, and Ukraine also put forward counterclaims to Romania under the Espoo Convention regarding its projects in the Danube Delta.
