25 April 2016, 19:12
The Committee on Fuel and Energy Complex, Nuclear Policy and Nuclear Safety jointly with the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) held a round table entitled "Energy subsidies in Ukraine and first results of the reform." Chairperson of the Committee on Fuel and Energy Complex Oleksandr Dombrovskyi, Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine Hennadii Zubko, Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine Pavlo Rozenko, Minister of Energy and Coal Industry Ihor Nasalyk, Director of the Secretariat of the European Energy Community Janez Kopacz, people’s deputies of Ukraine, representatives of key ministries, international organizations, scientific institutions and other parties interested in discussing the reform of energy subsidies in Ukraine took part in the event.
The discussion was based on a preliminary wording of the research "Energy subsidies in Ukraine," which utilizes a lot of data from open sources and provides an analysis of the current situation with and mechanisms of granting energy subsidies. The research was conducted by specialists of the Global Subsidies Initiative (GS) under the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), which is a partner of the OECD in realization of this project.
The speakers concluded that energy subsidies tend to disproportionately accumulate among the rich and most influential members of the society, and thus increase profits of the investors or industries associated with them. Stimulation or consumption of fossil fuels instead of cleaner alternatives leads to larger emissions of greenhouse gases.
The Government has initiated a fairly aggressive campaign in order to explain the affordability of subsidies, but there is no such information campaign on the energy efficiency and energy conservation measures. The people’s deputy noted that the importance of the round table is due to the Paris Agreement signed on April 22, and expressed hope that the professional discussion should reduce the scope of manipulations on the topic of subsidizing.
The round table participants reached a consensus that energy conservation should be an integral part of the state policy of subsidizing and also agreed that the Committee on Fuel and Energy Complex, Nuclear Policy and Nuclear Safety can become not only a platform for further work of interested parties on the issue of energy subsidies reform, but it can also ensure control function of the parliament, will strengthen effective operation of central executive power bodies in this area.
For reference: The EaP GREEN program is funded by the European Union and other donors and implemented by OECD in co-operation with UNEP, UNECE, UNIDO.