On August 26, the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources of Ukraine published a draft Law of Ukraine on Amendments to the Law of Ukraine “On Environmental Impact Assessment” for public consideration. The draft law contains a number of important changes to the environmental impact assessment procedure, mainly related to such features as holding public hearings and public consideration of reports on environmental impact assessment, as well as the regulation of certain aspects of the procedure under martial law.  

New approaches to public consideration of the report on environmental impact assessment 

In case the draft law is adopted, the procedure for public consideration of the report on environmental impact assessment, which is mandatory part of the procedure, will undergo significant changes. Thus, it is proposed to make changes to Article 4 of the Law, which regulates the issue of publicity of environmental impact assessment, and to expand the list of places in which the notice of the planned activity subject to assessment and the announcement of the start of public discussion are published: 

• in electronic form: on the official website of the Unified Register for Environmental Impact Assessment, the websites of district state administrations, relevant local self-government bodies, as well as by mailing to persons registered in the Unified Register (placed by an authorized body);
• in paper form: on the bulletin boards of local self-government bodies (placed by an authorized body); at least in three public places on the territory where the corresponding activity is planned, as well as in administrative-territorial units that may be affected (placed directly by the business entity).

The corresponding announcement about the start of the public discussion is published by the authorized body within one working day - instead of three, as was provided before.

Another amendment to the draft law is the shortening of the period for public consideration of the report: the time for providing comments and suggestions from the public is proposed to be reduced from 20 to 12 working days, and for providing conditions regarding the scope of research and the level of detail of information - from 30 to 15 working days. At the same time, the minimum period of public discussion of the report remains unchanged - 25 days, but the norm regarding the maximum term of public discussion is removed. 

An important proposed change is that the business entity may not hold public hearings – if less than 10 people have registered for them, public hearings are not scheduled, and the procedure is carried out without this stage.

Clarification of the grounds for refusing to issue an environmental impact assessment opinion and the grounds for providing an environmental impact assessment opinion in which the inadmissibility of the planned activity is determined 

The draft law proposes to specify the grounds for providing an environmental impact assessment opinion, which determines the inadmissibility of the planned activity, as well as for refusing to provide an opinion. 

Thus, Article 9 is proposed to be supplemented with a new part 6-1, which provides for the provision of an environmental impact assessment opinion in which the inadmissibility of the planned activity is determined in the event that prohibitions or restrictions provided for by law are found that make the planned activity impossible, or if even if the necessary measures are taken, the impact of the planned activity will be such that it will be impossible to conduct it in accordance with the requirements of the law. 

It is also proposed to supplement the Law with the new article 9-1, which establishes the grounds for refusing to issue an environmental impact assessment opinion, namely:

• the grounds stipulated by the Law of Ukraine "On the permit system in the sphere of economic activity"
• violation of the requirements for the publication of a notice of the planned activity, the beginning of the public consideration of the documentation subject to it, as well as the recognition of public hearings as having not taken place due to the non-appearance of the business entity;
• violation by the business entity of the legal requirements for the environmental impact assessment report.

Special regulations for the period of application of martial law

The challenges of wartime were also not left out: the draft law proposes to supplement the final and transitional provisions of the Law with two new norms that apply during the period of martial law:

• a special procedure for marking the place of planned activity in public sources is introduced;
• holding public hearings in the form of providing written comments and suggestions (including in electronic form), and in temporarily occupied, surrounded or in active warzones public hearings are not held during this period.