Industry must partially finance Ukraine's green transformation, says EU ambassador
The issue of financing Ukraine's environmental transformation should be partially borne by industry. This was stated by the head of the EU Delegation to Ukraine, Matti Maasikas, during the 12th European-Ukrainian Energy Day, UNIAN reports.
According to him, "green" transformations cannot be financed solely by the state.
"It seems to me that Ukrainian industry and the private sector, logically, should also bear part of this burden. Currently, Ukrainian industry pays only 15 cents per 1 ton of CO2 emissions, while its price has reached 50 euros," he explained.
According to Maasikas, the Association Agreement between the EU and Ukraine also covers obligations in the environmental protection sphere. There is a fairly long list of laws in this area, according to which work is being done. The Law on Waste Management, on Environmental Protection, on Industrial Pollution, Environmental Control, which are international obligations of Ukraine.
"In case of adoption of these legislative acts, more opportunities for cooperation, trade with the EU, as well as assistance from the European Union open up. This is a two-way movement," he noted.
Negotiations between investors in "green" energy and the Ministry of Energy began in October 2019. The Ministry presented two projects for voluntary restructuring of the "green" tariff - a softer and a stricter one. In April 2020, investors presented their version of the "green" tariff restructuring to the Ministry of Energy. In June, the Cabinet of Ministers approved a memorandum on reducing the "green" tariff and signed it with investors, but not with all of them. The largest investor in renewable energy - Rinat Akhmetov's DTEK energy holding - stated that the state owed him more than UAH 1 billion under the "green" tariff.