VZCZCXRO9230
PP RUEHAST
DE RUEHBM #1133/01 1951518
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 141518Z JUL 06
FM AMEMBASSY BUCHAREST
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 4818
INFO RUEHZL/EUROPEAN POLITICAL COLLECTIVE
RUEHKV/AMEMBASSY KIEV 1232
RUEHGV/USMISSION GENEVA 0367
RUCNDT/USMISSION USUN NEW YORK 0110

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 BUCHAREST 001133 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT FOR EUR/NCE - W.SILKWORTH 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PREL ECON PBTS SENV UP RO
SUBJECT: BYSTROE CANAL: ROMANIA WELCOMES UN FINDINGS 
 
BUCHAREST 00001133  001.2 OF 002 
 
 
¶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 
 
BUCHAREST 00001133  002.2 OF 002 
 
 
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