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Romania has six out of 15 environmental infringement issues to solve
Romania has only six environmental infringement issues to solve out of a total of 15 once reported, Minister of the Environment and Forestry Rovana Plumb told a specialist conference on Tuesday.
'Waste is one of the important challenges facing Romania in the province of the environment. Romania has 15 infringement issues related to environmental protection, of which six are still to be settled. A first one, involving Sulina, will be settled next week, when European officials will conduct a fact-finding visit there. As far as I am concerned, the technical part is not important - the fact that there are warning flags over Romania or procedures started by the EU - but it is important for us to be pragmatic and for our efforts to lead to a rise in the life quality of Romanians. I believe that we will certainly overcome part of the identified issues at the next evaluation of the European Commission.
Plumb said there is much talk of Romania ranking last among the EU member states in terms of environmental protection, saying that this is an utmost priority.
'We have been talking for years about Romania bringing up the rear of EU member states in terms of environmental protection and the integrated waste management, but we should underscore that the previous government chose to ignore the issues. We are talking about fraud suspicions in public procurement contracts concluded in 2010-2011. The incumbent government is doing its best to remedy the errors of the past. Waste in environmental policy is the outmost priority for Romania and its Government. We have to stop considering waste as a burden and start seeing it as an opportunity for economic development. As far as the integrated management of waste is concerned, we have reached the conclusion that an integrated management, including the selective collection of waste, is an important source for jobs creation. Currently, there is a big problem regarding funds, but that is not the main problem,' said Plumb.
Official data with the Ministry of the Environment and Forestry (MMP) indicate that 20 projects worth 900 million euros have so far been submitted to the waste management authority.
A report drawn up by the European Commission and released early this August shows Romania ranking among the 10 EU member states that were most lacking in progress with the integrated management of waste.
Green Report and the MMP held Tuesday a conference on waste and 18 criteria for Romania's path to performance designed for the main players in the municipal waste market following the latest report released by the EU on the performance of the member states in relation to municipal waste, the 2014-2020 national waste strategy the new directive on waste of electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) and necessary solutions to avoid actual infringement risks.