The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine recently adopted Resolution No.630 that amends the "List of types of activities and objects with high environmental hazard", adopted by its Resolution No.554 of 27 July 1995 (the "List"). Activities included in this List are subject to full-scope environmental impact assessment (ОВНС) and mandatory state environmental expert review, or (in the case of construction projects) expert review with respect to its environmental impact.

The amendment restates par.22 of the List, replacing "other separate objects, construction and operation of which may have a negative environmental impact, defined on case-by-case basis by the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources or its local bodies" with "construction projects of the objects that fall under IV-V difficulty categories".

This amendment, therefore, makes the List exhaustive and brings it into compliance with the Law of Ukraine "On Regulation of Town Planning". At the same it also withdraws powers of the environmental authorities to pick and choose additional projects excluded from the List to be sent for state environmental expert review.

With the entrance into force on 12 June 2011, of the latest amendments to pp.2-5 of Article 31 of the Law of Ukraine "On Regulation of Town Planning", all construction projects that fall under IV-V difficulty categories are now subject to mandatory expert environmental impact review. Such review is now to be carried out pursuant to this law and the "Procedure for adoption of the construction projects and carrying out their expertise", recently adopted by the Resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers No. 560 of 11 May 2011.

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The original publication date for this article was 20/06/2011.