#NiceToMeetEU: Kateryna Shor

Name: Kateryna SHOR
Country: Ukraine
Function and responsibilities: lawyer, project manager
Organisation: Information center “Green Dossier”

I’m working for environmental NGO Information center “Green Dossier” for more than 20 years as a project manager and almost 10 of them coordinating agrarian issues (e.g. organic agriculture projects, sustainable development in agriculture, climate change and agriculture).

Last year our activities were closely connected to the implementation of the Association Agreement between Ukraine and the EU concluded in 2016 and possible implementation of the European Green Deal especially in environmental and agricultural spheres.

I’m a member of working groups in the field of agriculture Working Group on Elaboration of the National organic legislation within the Ministry of Economy of Ukraine (Since 2015), Agriculture and Rural Development Working group within the Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum (since 2018) and others.

I’m also coordinating OrganicInfo.ua - Information Portal about organic agriculture, writing articles about organic agriculture, analysing legislative changes, sector development etc.

The whole program was prepared in a very professional way, I met people from the European Parliament and the European Commission, the European Economic and Social Committee and the European External Action Service and a few other institutions. It was a real opportunity to get more information about the EU from inside on how its decision making process is organised between the different stakeholders and institutions, how the voices of NGOs and/or other groups could influence  the decisions being taken. Also most of my interlocutors expressed their interest to Ukraine and it was really great to get a variety of views and discuss topical issues.

It is important that all the meetings were in a format of bilateral discussion and not just a QA session.

I’m always open for discussions about green economy and sustainable development, sustainable agriculture and specifically further development of organic agriculture. You can never  have too much knowledge!

English, Russian

I hope one day Ukraine could become an EU member state but even before that I’m sure that EU environmental legislation and ambition aims of the Green Deal are those things should be implemented in Ukraine. Climate change is not a problem of one country and it couldn’t be solved only by the EU. I think all nations should do all the best to stop these changes.

I consider European Green Deal (with all changes it brings and related measures) as one of such mechanisms which could stop the crisis.