Ministry of Regional Development, Building and Housing of Ukraine, MPs from Parliamentary Committee on Fuel and Energy Complex, Nuclear Policy and Nuclear Safety as well as international partners call Ukrainian MPs to support the draft law on creation of Energy Efficiency Fund (No. 5598). The vote in the second reading will take place on Thursday, June 8.
“As of today, Ukraine’s housing sector consumes up to 18 billion cubic meters of gas per year. This is a first step to create technical and financial tools which would open opportunities for every Ukrainian household, both in blocks of flats or in private houses, to obtain external funding to improve energy efficiency of their dwelling. This package of draft laws – draft laws on Energy Efficiency Fund, on energy efficiency in buildings, on commercial metering and billing of heat and water, on housing and communal services – provides tools that will help to find out what a household needs to do to cut energy consumption in two or even three times,” noted Hennadii Zubko, Deputy Prime Minister – Minister of Regional Development, Construction and Housing and Communal Services of Ukraine.
“This tool will help, especially for Ukrainian housing cooperatives, to receive very significant funds in addition to funds from the state budget – more than EUR 100 million from our international partners, first of all, from the Government of Germany,” noted Oleksandr Dombrovskyi, MP from “Petro Poroshenko Block”, First Deputy Head of the Parliamentary Committee on Fuel and Energy Complex, Nuclear Policy and Nuclear Safety. If the law is adopted during the current Parliamentary session, Ukraine will have a chance to obtain a part of this amount in 2017-2018.
It is important for this package of draft laws to be adopted before the summer break, emphasized Peter Wagner, head of the Support Group for Ukraine at the European Commission. “It’s only this package as a whole and then a lot of subsequent legislation that still has to come which will really make the change in substance and not just be a lawn of subsidy thrown into the country,” he stressed. “It’s a project that we are here to support in preparation, in the current moment, but also in longer term in the implementation”. Peter Wagner also confirmed that international partners prefer to contribute the funds to Energy Efficiency Fund rather than the state budget. The first reason is that this model has proved its efficiency in many EU member states; the second reason is that this way will provide an opportunity to use best practices from abroad nowadays and in the future.
Hennadii Zubko also emphasized that cooperation with European partners is an opportunity for transfer of knowledge and cooperation with professionals in this field. He added that improving energy efficiency, as the experience of Poland has shown, contributes to development of small and medium enterprises operating in this field even in situation of recession. “Our taskforce did its best to ensure that the future Fund works efficiently. We hope that on Thursday the Parliament will support the law and then it will be time for the Cabinet of Ministers to make its decision, for that we could start implementation of this legislation together with the donors, international organizations and professionals,” said Oleksii Riabchyn, MP from “Batkivschyna” faction, member of the Parliamentary Committee on Fuel and Energy Complex, Nuclear Policy and Nuclear Safety. “There are issues that deserve MPs support on the level of constitutional majority. In my opinion, legislative changes paving way towards Ukraine’s energy efficiency must bring all of us together,” Dombrovskyi stressed. “Today there is no other way. We have to choose between losing time, remaining energy dependent and letting several people make money on this, or moving towards energy independence for Ukraine,” Zubko summarized.