Romania's environmental authorities pledge to urgently address issues signalled by EC on Thursday

The Ministry of Environment will make efforts to urgently address the environmental issues signalled by the European Commission in the letter of formal notice sent this Thursday, the ministry said in a release. Thus, as far as air quality monitoring is concerned, as the European Commission's public document also states, Romania has lately been carrying out an overhaul of its air quality monitoring network. "The economic and demographic dynamics, as well as the national urban development required the restructuring of the National Air Quality Monitoring Network by reconfiguring existing measuring points (redefinition/relocation) and installing new measuring points. Romania has already proceeded to setting these measures into practice with funding from the Environmental Fund (the 'National Program for the Development and Optimization of the National Air Quality Monitoring Network') as well as from the EU (Large Infrastructure Operational Programme project 'Improving the national air quality assessment and monitoring system')," the release reads. Regarding the existence of industrial installations that operate without appropriate permits, in all the six cases mentioned by the European Commission (they include four large combustion plants and a large pig farm), the National Environmental Guard has applied the fines provided for by the law plus the supplementary sanction of activity suspension. All six companies have challenged the environmental authorities' decisions in court, and the trials are underway in various stages. With regard to the Natura 2000 network and the insufficient number of designated Sites of Community Importance (SCI), the Ministry of Environment has recently proposed a project aimed at analyzing the existing nationwide Natura 2000 network. This action will complete the data requested by the European Commission and, depending on the case, the ministry will propose the designation of new SCIs. Funding is ensured until 2021 from the Environmental Fund. As far as compliance with the EU Regulation on fluorinated greenhouse gases is concerned, Romania has made significant progress. The draft regulatory act which provides for sanctions for the aspects stipulated in the Regulation and also reviews the role of the competent authorities is in the inter-ministerial approval phase. The new piece of legislation correlates the new provisions of the F-gas Regulation with their role already established through Government Decision No. 939/2010, which will be repealed upon the coming into force of the new regulatory proposal. AGERPRES (RO - author: Daniel Badea, editor: Nicoleta Gherasi; EN - author: Simona Klodnischi, editor: Simona Iacob)