On December 22, 2025, within the framework of the implementation of the project "EU Global Responsible Leadership: Climate Change, Environmental Protection and Humanitarian Aid" (EU_LEAD) with the support of the Erasmus+ Jean Monnet program, a meeting of the Euroclub "EU for YOU" was held. Professors and international relation students of Lviv Polytechnic talked with Roman Onyshkevych, a postgraduate student of the Department of Political Science and International Relations, a researcher of EU anti-corruption policy, a master of commercial and corporate law (LL.M., Queen Mary University of London), a lawyer, a member of the National Bar Association of Ukraine and the International Bar Association, a veteran, senior lieutenant of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, on the topic of the anti-corruption policy of the European Union and its role in achieving sustainable development goals.
At the beginning of his speech, Roman Onyshkevych focused on the question of why corruption significantly limits the implementation of environmental and climate initiatives and threatens the achievement of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. In particular, he discussed the undermining of independent governance, the achievement of Goal No. 16 (Peace, Justice and Shared Institutions), as well as the impact on all areas, as corruption hinders the progress not only of climate policy, but also of social functions in general. The content of the four principles of good governance was revealed, such as: accountability, inclusiveness, participation and transparency in the context of good climate and environmental governance. The speaker focused in more detail on two key dimensions of anti-corruption policy and the EU anti-corruption portfolios, noting that the more complex the policy is and the larger the financial flows (in particular, in the field of climate and environment), the more critical the anti-corruption integrity loop becomes. Environmental and climate corruption was presented as a “silent threat” that can be disguised in the form of technical procedures and management decisions in the field of environmental and climate regulation, for example, through manipulation, conflicts of interest, state capture. Taken together, this constitutes a direct risk to the effective implementation of EU climate and environmental policy. Among the key corruption risks, Roman Onyshkevych identified the following areas of environment and climate: policy and rulemaking; permitting procedures and assessments; public procurement and contracts; inspections, control, sanctions; markets and cross-border policies, concluding that environmental corruption is a portfolio of risks that links different types of corruption and organized crime. Practical cases of “green” corruption (using the example of the EU) aroused considerable interest. In particular, the cases concerned fraud with emission quotas, subsidies in renewable energy (Slovenia), violations in waste infrastructure (Bulgaria), urban green projects (Bulgaria), agricultural subsidies (Slovakia), as well as illegal landfills (Greece), transport eco-crimes (Croatia), etc.
The topic of the Euroclub "EU for YOU" aroused considerable interest among students, who actively participated in the discussion, in particular, they were interested in the Ukrainian experience in overcoming "green" corruption, the scope of the EU's powers in combating this type of corruption in relation to member states, etc. In total, 54 people – professors and students of Lviv Polytechnic - took part in the event.
The EU_LEAD project team thanks everyone for the interesting discussion and invites you to other interesting events within the project.
