The new order on the powers of the State Emergency Service will complicate the work of business

State Regulatory Service of Ukraine
St. Arsenalna, 9/11, Kyiv, 01011

Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine
St. Akademika Bogomoletsa, 10, Kyiv, 01601

On February 7, 2024, the draft order of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine “On approval of the Rules for maintaining the operational suitability (maintenance) of fire protection systems” was officially published (https://dsns.gov.ua/uk/konsultaciyi-z-gromadskistyu/elektronni-konsultaciyi-z-gromadskistyu) protection of houses, buildings, structures and their parts”, developed by the State Emergency Service of Ukraine.

Changes to Art. 55 of Chapter 13 of the Code of Civil Protection of Ukraine, introduced by Law of Ukraine No. 3063-IX dated 02.05.2023. In particular, in the second sentence of Clause 5 of Art. 55 of Section 13 of this Code states: “Maintenance of operational suitability (maintenance) of such systems is carried out in accordance with the rules approved by the central executive body, which ensures the formation of state policy in the field of civil protection.”

At the same time, Clause 1.4 of Section V “Fire Safety Rules in Ukraine” (NAPB A.01.001-2014) states: “Maintenance of operational suitability (maintenance) of fire protection systems is carried out in accordance with the requirements of the technical documentation of manufacturing enterprises and approved regulations maintenance works”. As you know, this document was developed by the State Emergency Service and approved by the order of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine dated December 30, 2014 No. 1417, registered with the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine on March 5, 2015 under No. 252/26697 (with amendments).

Therefore, the Civil Protection Code does not contain a direct requirement regarding the need to develop a separate normative legal act that would regulate the procedure for maintaining the operational suitability of fire protection systems (SPZ), and these rules themselves are already regulated by existing documents, namely NAPB A.01.001-2014 , DSTU 9047:2020 “Fire protection systems. Guideline on maintenance of operational suitability”, as well as European norms adopted in Ukraine regarding systems of specific types (Appendix 1).

DSTU 9047:2020 itself regulates all processes of acceptance, operation, maintenance and verification of operational suitability, modernization, extension of the operation period, and decommissioning of SDRs. These requirements are built on the basis of the norms adopted in Ukraine for such systems and are set forth by providing relevant links and/or specifying their individual provisions. Its developer is the Technical Standardization Committee TK 25 “Fire Safety and Fire Fighting Equipment”, the secretariat of which is located in the IMU ND Central Committee of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine

At the same time, the draft Rules duplicate part of the requirements of the existing norms and, moreover, contradict DSTU 9047:2020 and the adopted European norms both in terms of the description of relevant procedures and in terms of the list and forms of acts that must be drawn up at various stages of life of the fire control system cycle (“FRC card”, “Act of confirmation of readiness for use of fire protection equipment”, “Plan-summary of training for working with fire control devices”, etc.). This issue is covered in more detail in Appendix 2. Considering the mandatory nature of the standards for fire protection systems through references to them in the state building regulations DBN V.2.5-56:2014 “Fire protection systems” (with amendments), which were also developed with the participation of the State Emergency Service, the adoption of the proposed draft Rules will cause a legal conflict.

It is worth noting that the proposed project actually puts the majority of non-state and state enterprises, organizations and institutions of Ukraine (objects with responsibility classes SS2 and SS3) in dependence on the subjective opinions and decisions of the employees of the State Emergency Service. The main and fundamental differences of the “Rules” project from the existing norms are that it aims to give the State Emergency Service powers that are not inherent to this service, which are the subject of regulatory and legal regulation of documents of a higher rank (clauses 2-4 of section 3 of chapter III , the 2nd paragraph of Clause 1 of Chapter V of the Draft Rules), which are currently regulated by the Code of Civil Protection of Ukraine and the Regulations on Emergency Situations, approved by Resolution No. 1052 of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine dated December 16, 2015.

At the same time, DSTU 9047:2020 provides (which is in line with European practice) the voluntary involvement of experts from an independent institution accredited in accordance with DSTU EN ISO/IEC 17020:2019 (EN ISO/IEC 17020:2012, IDT; ISO/IEC 17020:2012) , IDT) “Conformity assessment. Requirements for the work of various types of inspection bodies” (third party). In other words, there is an attempt to replace the European practice of voluntary and impartial assessment of compliance, carried out by competent and certified specialists, with mandatory checks carried out by employees of the State Emergency Service, adopted in Ukraine.

It is clear from the draft of the Rules that even qualification requirements for such employees are not provided for. Therefore, if this document is approved, any employee of the State Emergency Service will have the right to single-handedly influence not only the acceptance of construction objects into operation, but also the possibility of their further functioning, which is definitely associated with high corruption risks. Therefore, if this project is adopted, the very possibility of voluntarily involving qualified persons of an independent third party, accredited in accordance with DSTU EN ISO/IEC 17020, in order to obtain an objective assessment of their condition, will be leveled in favor of decision-making by employees of the State Emergency Service, whose competence in these processes causes questions.

Taking this into account, we believe that the true purpose of the attempt to adopt this normative legal act is the effort of the State Emergency Service to return and even increase the lost powers in the field of control, which were canceled earlier due to numerous corruption risks at the stages of not only the commissioning of construction objects, but also their exploitation.

Members of the Ukrainian Business Council urge the Ministry of Internal Affairs not to adopt the Order “On approval of rules for maintaining the operational suitability (maintenance) of fire protection systems of houses, buildings, structures and their parts” as one that will worsen the conditions for doing business in Ukraine.