On September 20, 2022, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine adopted in the second reading the Law of Ukraine “On the National Pollution Release and Transfer Register” No.6477 of 28/12/2021 (hereinafter – the Law No. 6477 or the Law). On October 6, 2022, the Law was signed by the President of Ukraine.
As indicated in the preamble, this Law defines the legal and organizational basis for the creation and operation of the National Pollution Release and Transfer Register in order to ensure public access to complete, consistent and reliable data on emissions and transfers of pollutants and waste.
The Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources of Ukraine notes that the National Pollution Release and Transfer Register (PRTR) will become the only state online data system. The digital map will display all polluting enterprises and information about them. In addition, the national register will be integrated with the corresponding European register.
It is important to emphasize that, except for certain provisions, this Law enters into force 12 months after its publication, and the first reporting year is the calendar year in which this Law enters into force.
Within a period of six months from the date of entry into force of the Law, the CMU ensures the adoption of normative legal acts to implement the provisions of the Law. Within two years from the date of entry into force of this Law, the National Pollution Release and Transfer Register is required to be integrated with the European Pollution Release and Transfer Register.
Some provisions of the Law, for example, those related to the approval of the form of the certificate on diffuse sources, the procedure for drawing up and submitting such certificates to the authorized body; preliminary assessment of the quality of the data included in the operator’s report, certificates on diffuse sources regarding their completeness, consistency and reliability at the time of acceptance of the operator’s report, certificates on diffuse sources enter into force 24 months after the date of publication of this Law.
This means that we cannot hope that the provisions of the adopted Law will start working immediately. In addition, the creation of a system of ensuring the functioning of the National Pollution Release and Transfer Register is a rather lengthy process. According to optimistic forecasts, the provisions of the Law will begin to fully function after the two-year period from the date of entry into force of this Law.
It should be noted that at the beginning of 2016, the Parliament of Ukraine ratified the PRTR Protocol with its Law No. 980-VIII2, which entered into force for Ukraine on May 2, 2016. In accordance with Article 8 of the PRTR Protocol, the first reporting year for Ukraine was 2017,and information for the first reporting year was to be included in the National Pollution Release and Transfer Register until the end of 2019.However, this did not happen.
We see that even despite the adoption of the Law, Ukraine is “late” in implementing its provisions in practice by at least five years. However, the adoption of the Law is an important step on the way to European integration, implementation of European standards in the legal system of Ukraine, ensuring public access to true and complete information about the state of the environment.
