Selected environmental policy briefs for
other nations of the former Soviet Union

Reprinted from Environment & Health Online

Baltic States	Bulgaria	Czech Rep.	Hungary	Poland	Romania
Slovakia	Fmr. Yugoslavia	Central/East European Region		Former Soviet region
Belarus	Caucasus	Central Asia	Moldova	Russia	Ukraine

The policy briefs reprinted in these pages are drawn from past issues of Okno Group's E&H Online Environment Report. The briefs have been selected for broader interest and appear here with a delay after original publication.

Central Asia
January 1998	U.S.-Kazak agreements include environment and nuclear energy In mid-November, U.S. Vice President Al Gore and Kazak President Nursultan Nazarbayev signed agreements covering issues including economic and political reform in Kazakstan, defense cooperation and non-proliferation, investment, trade and commercial cooperation, and environmental concerns in the former Soviet Union. At the same time, President Bill Clinton approved an agreement with Kazakstan allowing cooperation in non-military uses of nuclear energy. The deal offers $10 million in U.S. aid in guaranteeing the safety of Kazakstan's nuclear power plant at Aktau, including disposal of nuclear waste and shutting the reactor by 2003. Kazakstan has four other nuclear reactors, all for scientific purposes. In July, Kazak officials announced plans to build two or three modern nuclear power stations by 2030. Proposals have been made by Russia to build a nuclear power plant in Kazakstan in a project worth $2 billion. Copyright ©1998 by Okno Group.

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Moldova
August 1998	Moldova agrees to allow transit of Bulgarian nuclear waste On 12 August, the Moldovan parliament ratified an agreement with Bulgaria to allow a train carrying spent fuel from the Kozloduy nuclear power plant to cross Moldovan territory on its way to Russia where the spent fuel rods will be recycled. The issue split the center-right Moldovan cabinet, and government leaders were only able to push the agreement through with the assistance of left-wing opposition deputies. Environmentalists and conservatives opposed allowing transit of the fuel because they fear the environmental consequences of an accident. Officials argued that the pile-up of spent fuel near Bulgaria's border with Moldova, which has continued since 1991, is more dangerous to Moldova; they also claimed that without this shipment to relieve the pressure, the Bulgarian plant might have to shut down before winter. Deputies from the Communist opposition were willing to support the government proposal in order to foil conservative opposition which they viewed as coming at the behest of Romania. The government has promised expert supervision of the train, but environmentalists and conservatives vowed to block the train. Copyright ©1998 by Okno Group.

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Ukraine
August 1998	Chemical plant workers in Stebnyk, in western Ukraine, threatened in early August to dump poisonous chemicals into the Dniestr river if they do not receive their wages, which are six months late. Regional officials and enterprise management have tightened security, and a delegation from the plant has traveled to the capital Kiev to demand more funds for wages and environmental measures. The workers want 8.5 million hryvnas ($4.5 million), but the government promised to allocate 2 million hryvnas, only one quarter of which has actually been paid out. Copyright ©1998 by Okno Group.
July 1998	In late June, the World Bank gave a $23 million grant to the Ukrainian government aimed at protecting the ozone layer. The funds, from the Bank's Global Environment Facility, are to be used to phase out ozone-damaging chemicals used in Ukrainian industry. The Bank also provided a $20 million loan to Azerbaijan for nature conservation projects, particularly the protection and restoration of the sturgeon population. Funds will be used to build a new hatchery, and to clean mercury and oil contaminants from industrial areas close to key bodies of water. Copyright ©1998 by Okno Group.
May 1998	In late April, the Ukrainian government announced electricity price increases, effective 1 May. The new rates increase electric costs for households by an average of 23 percent. The rate increases are part of a financial restructuring plan for the power sector; a similar plan was abandoned in mid-1997, leading the World Bank to suspend a development loan for the power industry. Copyright ©1998 by Okno Group. The EBRD announced in mid-May that is was providing a $30 million loan to Ukraine to help small- and medium-sized businesses and government agencies to begin energy saving programs. The loan is to the state-owned Ukrainian Energy Service Company (UkrEsco), which will be managed by a unit of TPF-Econoler (Belgium) and Bechtel (US). The EBRD loan extends the bank's support for such private-sector energy efficiency efforts to Ukraine, which will have the first such ESCO in the former Soviet lands. Copyright ©1998 by Okno Group.
March 1998	A Ukrainian nuclear crisis information center was opened by the Environment Ministry on 27 February. The center is designed to monitor nuclear safety and radiation incidents around the country, and to provide emergency information to government agencies and the public. The center was set up with technical and financial help from the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the EU's TACIS program. Copyright ©1998 by Okno Group.
January 1998	On 15 December, President Leonid Kuchma of Ukraine signed a law on the extraction and processing of uranium ore. The law includes provisions regulating the protection of personnel, the general public, and the environment from the effects of radiation. Copyright ©1998 by Okno Group.

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Created 21 July 2000; last modified Mon, 24 Jul 2000