Directions of environmental regulation of economy in Ukraine due to Ukraine-European Union Association Agreement

Nowadays Ukraine faces the task of more active work in the field of environmental protection in order to approximate its existing environmental legislation (norms, standards) and taxation to the European ones according to the Ukraine-European Union Association Agreement. Environmental regulation of the economy has a long history in EU, which led to the pollution reduction by industries (major polluters) and citizens. This was due to changes of polluters? behaviour toward more conscientious attitude to natural resources, pollution reduction at the source, and the wide implementation of environmental-friendly technologies. At the same time Ukraine, despite some achievements in the field of environmental regulation of the economy that have occurred since the independence of the country, still imprisoned in post-Soviet heritage and is far behind EU in terms of environmental protection and regulation of the economy. One of the reasons for this phenomenon is that these tasks hold far from first positions in Ukraine giving place to solving financial, political, social and other problems. Undoubtedly, their solution is important, just as much as environmental protection and regulation, which could improve life quality of the population and have positive influence on economy of the state. Therefore it would be useful to analyze European experience in this field with the aim to define ways of approaching environmental regulation in Ukraine to EU standards. But for now any comprehensive analysis of the legal framework for environmental regulation of the economy in Ukraine could hardly be found, especially after signing the Association Agreement. Similarly, there are virtually no academic papers considering groundings of changes of the environmental taxes? level in Ukraine towards the European.Therefore, the main objective of the paper is to compare the peculiarities of economy environmental regulation in the EU and Ukraine and to develop recommendations and proposals for the approximation of national norms, standards and taxes on environmental protection to European ones. This is highlighted in several sections of the paper: approaching Ukrainian environmental policy principles and regulation of the economy to the EU ones; peculiarities of the environmental regulation of the economy in the EU and Ukraine by the directions; approaching environmental regulation of solid waste management in Ukraine to the EU one; approaching national environmental taxes level and structure to the EU ones. The paper represents a brief study of the existing problems in the field of environmental regulation of economy in Ukraine in the context of the Association Agreement and recommendations, developed on this basis. Moreover, it defines the circle of problems that need further research.