On September 9, 2022, the last extended discussion of the revised drafts of RA Law "On Environmental Impact Assessment and Expertise" and amendments to the relevant bylaws took place.
Addressing the colleagues, Deputy Minister Gayane Gabrielyan noted that the purpose of the discussion is to raise the most important points for the purpose of improving the provisions of the draft law by the representatives of state agencies.
During the discussion, recommendations and observations on the draft law were presented by state agencies. The representative of the Ministry of Territorial Administration and Infrastructures noted that in the case of non-commencement of activities after receiving the expert assessment conclusion proposed in the draft law, the period of 3 years revoking the validity of the expert assessment conclusion is long. According to the current law, the conclusion is invalidated if the activity doesn’t commence within 1 year from the issuance of the expert assessment conclusion.
Gayane Gabrielyan agreed that 3 years is artificially long and suggested fixing 2 years.
It was noted that in most cases, if the initiator does not start any activity after 1 year of issuing the conclusion, there is no mechanism for revoking the expert assessment conclusion. According to those present, there is no control to check or to find out that the company is no longer deprived of the positive conclusion of the EIA examination. The participants of the discussion mentioned that the physical capabilities of the Environmental Protection and Mining Inspection Body are not sufficient to check and control the processes implemented or not implemented after all the conclusions given.
Gayane Gabrielyan mentioned that the ministry provides 140-160 conclusions annually. She suggested developing a mechanism through by-laws that would impose an additional notification obligation on the entrepreneur. "It is possible to develop a procedure in which, two months before two years from the date of issuing the conclusion, the company will present what stage of activity it is in, what processes have been implemented," she said.
September 12, 2022 at 16:12