Ukraine’s Cabinet of Ministers has defined the areas of responsibility for First Deputy Prime Minister and Energy Minister Denys Shmyhal.
Under Resolution No. 984 dated July 29, Shmyhal’s portfolio covers management of the fuel and energy complex, state energy security, nuclear energy safety, alternative energy and the efficient use of fuel and energy resources, as well as alternative liquid and solid fuels, energy conservation and energy efficiency.
His competence also includes management of the exclusion zone and the zone of unconditional (mandatory) resettlement, mitigating the consequences of the Chornobyl disaster, decommissioning the Chornobyl nuclear plant and converting the New Safe Confinement into an environmentally safe system, as well as state management of radioactive waste at the stage of long-term storage and disposal.
Under the resolution, Shmyhal’s portfolio also covers national security in the military sphere, defense and military development in peacetime and during a special period; state military-industrial policy; defense procurement; and the defense-industrial complex.
His duties also include state industrial policy, the aircraft-building industry, space activity, innovation in strategic industries, digitalization, digital development, the digital economy, innovation, e-governance and e-democracy, digitalization of civil service processes, information society development, informatization, development of citizens’ digital skills and digital rights, open data, development of national electronic information resources and interoperability, broadband internet infrastructure and electronic communications development, and e-commerce and business.
Shmyhal’s competence also covers the issuance and conduct of lotteries and the organization and conduct of gambling.
In addition, the first deputy prime minister and energy minister will be responsible for the provision of public (electronic public) services, including administrative services; electronic trust services and electronic identification; IT industry development; investment in the IT industry; implementation of electronic document management; development of small and medium-sized business through e-commerce and digital economy tools, entrepreneurship training programs and business support centers, and coordinating central executive bodies on these matters; development of virtual assets, blockchain and tokenization, and artificial intelligence; technology development and transfer; state statistics policy; reform of state statistical activity; and modernization of the state statistics agencies’ information system.
Shmyhal’s competence also covers environmental protection; organizing the protection and use of the nature reserve fund; air protection, ozone layer protection and preventing global warming; climate change and implementation of the requirements of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, its Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement; rational use, restoration and protection of fauna and flora, biological and landscape diversity, and the formation, preservation and use of the ecological network, biological and genetic safety; environmental safety, waste management, hazardous chemicals, pesticides and agrochemicals; state oversight of environmental protection and the rational use, restoration and protection of natural resources; and geological study and rational use of subsoil.
He will also be responsible for healthcare; protecting the population from infectious diseases; combating HIV/AIDS and other socially dangerous diseases; quality control and sale of medicines and medical immunobiological products; and the circulation of narcotic drugs, psychotropic substances, their analogues and precursors, and combating their illegal trafficking.
Shmyhal’s competence also covers the social protection of war veterans, persons with special merits to the homeland, injured participants of the Revolution of Dignity, and their family members, as well as social protection for those covered by the law "On the Status of War Veterans and Guarantees of Their Social Protection"; preserving the mental health of war veterans and their family members; honoring the memory of war veterans; and other related matters.
The government also determined that if the prime minister is absent, his powers will be exercised by the first deputy prime minister, and if the first deputy prime minister is absent, by Deputy Prime Minister for Humanitarian Policy and Culture Minister Tetiana Berezhna.
As previously reported, parliament appointed Naftogaz CEO Serhiy Koretsky as prime minister on July 16 and, on his recommendation, approved the new composition of the Cabinet of Ministers.
