BYSTROE CANAL: ROMANIA WELCOMES UN FINDINGS

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TAGS: PREL ECON PBTS SENV UP RO
SUBJECT: BYSTROE CANAL: ROMANIA WELCOMES UN FINDINGS

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1. (SBU) Summary: Romania welcomed the unanimous findings
released by a special UN Inquiry Commission noting the
negative trans-boundary impact of Ukraine's dredging in
Bystroe Canal. Romanian officials now expect Ukraine to
initiate public and cross-border consultations on this
sensitive environmental issue before continuing to dredge
open a second shipping lane up the Danube Delta. The
Ukrainian Embassy said it is waiting for a translation of the
findings into Ukrainian before it offers any comment. It
remains to be seen how well the two countries will cooperate
on assessing and mitigating the environmental impact of the
Bystroe Canal, and whether Ukraine will continue the project
at all. Romania still wants the project stopped. End Summary.



2. (SBU) Romanian MFA Director General for Legal Affairs,
Cosmin Dinescu, relayed to PolOff on July 11 Romania's
eagerness to see Ukraine abide by the July 10 UN Economic
Commission for Europe (UNECE) Inquiry Commission's finding
regarding the negative trans-boundary environmental effects
of Ukrainian dredging in Bystroe Canal. Dinescu, who has the
lead on this dispute for Romania, described the commission's
finding as "compulsory and legally binding." He said that
Romania now expects Ukraine to consult Romania according to
the Espoo Convention before proceeding with any further
dredging in Bystroe Canal. Dinescu mentioned that the ruling
would also now force Ukraine to consult its own public,
according to the Aarhus Convention. These views were shared
by MFA Director General for Global Affairs and International
Organizations Stelian Stoian, who opined to PolChief that the
UN findings will make it easier for the Ukrainian government
to end the domestic debate over the canal, as many interests
in Ukraine have continued to push for the project's
completion. Stoian reiterated Romania's position that the
project should be terminated, with no more dredging.


3. (U) The UNECE Inquiry Commission's finding in favor of
Romania on Ukraine's dredging of the Bystroe Canal represents
the first time the Convention on Environmental Impact
Assessment in a Transboundary Context has been ruled to apply
since countries signed it in Espoo, Finland, in 1991. The
Inquiry Commission formed as a result of Romania's 2004
complaint to the UNECE that Ukraine had failed to abide by
the Espoo Convention before beginning to dredge Bystroe
Canal; Ukraine claimed that the Espoo Convention did not
apply since the work was being performed on Ukrainian
territory. The Inquiry Commission, composed of Ukrainian,
Romanian, and independent experts, unanimously concluded that
the Espoo Convention applies since there is "likely
significant adverse trans-boundary impact" from the dredging
of Bystroe Canal. Specific significant environmental effects
cited included the loss of floodplain habitats important for
fish spawning and bird nesting, the downstream impact on fish
from the increased concentration of suspended sediment, and
the muddier waters resulting from dumping sediment in the
Black Sea. The full report of the Commission can be found at
www.unece.org/env/eia/documents/inquiry.htm.


4. (SBU) Both Stoian and Dinescu believed Ukraine would
comply with the finding and pointed to Ukrainian Foreign
Minister Tarasyuk's July 4 meeting with FM Ungureanu in
Odessa, where both parties "agreed to take into account in
good faith the conclusions of the International Inquiry
Commission." Neither Stoian nor Dinescu saw any way that
Ukraine could fail to abide by the Commission's findings
after both Foreign Ministers committed in public to abide by
the Inquiry Commission's findings. The meeting of the two
Foreign Ministers took place pursuant to an agreement
Presidents Basescu and Yushchenko reached during a bilateral
meeting held on the margins of the June 5 Black Sea Summit in
Bucharest. The Foreign Ministers discussed other sensitive
bilateral issues, including the status of the continental
shelf and Snake Island, and the rights of Ukrainian and
Romanian ethnic minorities in their respective countries,
according to the official protocol of the meeting as posted
on the Ukrainian MFA's website.


5. (SBU) Ukraine has almost completed the first stage of
dredging the canal, begun in 2004. However, Dinescu said that
sediments from recent flooding have set back Ukrainian
efforts to about the same point they were when the project
began. Now that the UNECE Inquiry Commission ruled there
were "likely significant adverse trans-boundary effects,"
Romania awaits Ukraine's environmental impact assessment and
opportunity for public consultation that it did not receive
before the dredging began. The Ukrainian Embassy in
Bucharest told PolOff that it was waiting for the

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Commission's report to be translated into Ukrainian before
commenting on it, even though the original text in English is
available on the internet. Both the Ukrainian Embassy and
Dinescu explained that little interaction goes through the
Ukrainian Embassy on this subject, but instead the Romanian
Embassy in Kiev deals directly with the Ukrainian Ministry of
Transport and the state-owned company Delta Prospect.


6. (U) The three mouths of the Danube River form the second
largest river delta in Europe, next to the Volga Delta in the
Caspian Sea. The Danube Delta was designated an
Internationally Important Wetland and World Heritage Site in
1991, and a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve in 1992 due to its
importance to millions of migratory birds. Only the Danube's
Sulena arm, which flows through Romania, is navigable for
larger ships. Romania does not charge any taxes for shipping
up the Danube according to the Belgrade Convention of 1948,
but does charge pilotage fees and non-discriminatory
navigability fees for regular dredging. Dinescu said the
pilots receiving the pilotage fees for managing the river's
more difficult navigation were currently all Romanian, but
that they could be from any nationality. Besides shortening
routes to the Ukrainian ports of Izmayil and Reni, Dinescu
discounted any economic importance or viability of opening up
a second shipping lane in the Danube Delta through Ukraine's
Bystroe Channel.


7. (SBU) Comment: The joint statement issued by the Romanian
and Ukrainian foreign ministers in Odessa and attempts to
find mutually agreeable solutions to bilateral problems, even
if through UN and ICJ arbitration, have helped map out the
means for the two states to work out their differences on at
least some of these sensitive questions. How the two now
cooperate on assessing and mitigating the environmental
impact of Bystroe Canal will be an indicator of whether the
two Black Sea states can begin to constructively resolve such
sensitive issues. We wonder now also to what extent the
ongoing changes in Kiev's political complexion will moot
these recent gains in the Ukrainian-Romanian dialogue. One
way or the other, our Romanian interlocutors view this as a
clear win for the Romanian side that they believe will lead
to an end to the Bystroe Canal project once and for all. End
Comment.


8. (U) Amembassy Bucharest's reporting telegrams are
available on the Bucharest SIPRNet website:
www.state.sgov.gov/p/eur/bucharest
TAUBMAN