Rebuilding efforts will help make Ukraine an attractive, green economy – EC Executive Vice-President Timmermans

Exclusive interview of the Executive Vice President of the European Commission for the European Green Deal Frans Timmermans to the Interfax-Ukraine agency

Author: Dmytro Koshovy

-- Ukraine this summer announced its intention to initiate negotiations on special conditions for participation in the CBAM rules. How realistic is this? What concessions can Ukraine count on?

-- I think that first of all this shows how determined Ukraine is to immediately work on the reconstruction and keep the economy going while its people fight for their freedom. Ukraine is choosing to rebuild modern infrastructure and industry, underpinned by clean energy and the EU will support these efforts.

The urgency right now is to ensure Ukrainians have enough energy to get through the winter, which we are working on together, for example by supplying electricity generators. This will mean that more carbon-intensive energy is produced in the coming months, but I don’t doubt Ukraine’s determination to rebuild a sustainable economy which does not depend on Russian fossil fuels. The EU’s and Ukraine’s interests are very much aligned here.

As regards CBAM, the starting point is that we want to avoid that efforts inside the EU to reduce greenhouse gas emissions lead to increased emissions elsewhere. The climate crisis is a global crisis, we can’t solve it by pushing emissions up in other places. We also want to encourage cleaner industrial production in other countries. Exemptions to CBAM are therefore not our starting point. Rather, we want to work with partners to help them clean their industrial production. After all, if the carbon embedded in your products is relatively low, CBAM will not apply to the same degree.

The system focuses on products, not