Address by The Ukrainian Minister of..., Danish Environmental Protection Agency

Danish - Ukranian Environmental Co-operation 1993-2002

Address by The Ukrainian Minister of Enviromental and Natural Resources

Dear Sirs!

At the beginning of the new millennium the status of the environment is one of the most important problems for the humanity, solution of which is possible only with united efforts. Is it not true that every country of the world makes its own input to this global matter.

Also Ukraine takes an active part in solutions of environmental problems of the modern society both those which are being created now and those which have not been solved within the previous years. At present, our country is part of more than 20 International Conventions and Agreements on environmental protection.

Analyzing results of the work in this area, attained within the last years, besides, from the point of view of both the bilateral as well as multilateral international co-operation efficiency, it is important to underline that Ukraine highly appreciates the Danish assistance in our transition period of the last ten years, starting from the collapse of the Soviet Union and the creation of the independent Ukraine.

The co-operation deserves special attention in the area of environmental problems solutions, although the negative impact of the heavy industry, energy sector, forestry, agriculture and the communal sector, which our young country inherited from the Soviet Union, while developing intensively for a long time has not been taken into consideration.

Considering the managerial experience of Danish companies, firms and individuals, their assistance in researching new improved technologies for the environment and attraction of the public to the decision-making is unvalued for Ukraine.

This book gives a chronological review of Ukrainian-Danish co-operation within the last ten years. Starting in 1993, there have been implemented 80 joint Ukrainian-Danish project within the area of the environmental protection, with total cost of about EUR 100 million, with the input from the Kingdom of Denmark reaching nearly EUR 37 million, of which:

37 per cent was allowed for water resources management projects, including problems of ensuring the population with good quality drinking water and restructuring of communal water enterprises;

18 per cent for projects on energy saving with the aim of introducing new incineration technologies, research in alternative energy sources, energy savings and ultimately, decrease of green house gases emissions;

45 per cent are projects with the aim at environmental protection problems, including issues of waste utilization, forecasting of catastrophic floods having a negative impact in 5 European countries and liquidation of their consequences in Zakarpatia. Also Danish funds were allocated for dealing with the aftermath of the Chernobyl catastrophe, which caused tremendous losses to the humanity and had serious impact on the world environment.

We are considering this co-operation as positive investments in the future development of environmental relations between our countries. It is necessary to note that Ukraine is a relatively new self- sustainable production area but at the same time a considerable consumer market in Europe. In our mutual Agreements at the Yalta Summit "Ukraine – EU 2001", environmental protection has been defined as an important area of our co-operation with the European countries, especially in such priority areas as Global Climate Change and Water Resources Management. Ukraine regards co-operation in these directions as a unique possibility of technology improvement in the field of energy and resources savings.

We express out gratitude to the Kingdom of Denmark and do hope that Denmark will remain our good and reliable partner on the road towards the realization of our goals.

With best wishes to all readers of this book

Minister of the Environment and Natural Resources of Ukraine
Vasyl Shevchouk