Romania faces new infringement procedures on environmental issues

The European Commission has issued new infringement procedures against Romania for not complying with its environmental commitments in waste, natural habitats and water and air quality issues. The EC demands that Romania will fulfil obligations such as closing and rehabilitating its illegal waste dumps (letter of formal notice), to ensure natural habitats and wild species protection (letter of formal notice), to respect the EU standards for urban waste water (letter of formal notice), and to adopt national air pollution control programmes (reasoned opinion), according to Business-Review.eu.

No less than 15 illegal landfills benefited from a grace period of transition according to Romania’s treaty of accession to the EU. In a letter of formal notice, the European Commission demanded that the 15 waste dumps must be closed, sealed, and ecologically restored. Member states have the obligation to retrieve and eliminate waste in a manner which won’t affect public health and the environment. In the accession treaty, Romania had 101 non-compliant landfills which should have been closed as of 2019, but it only managed to rehabilitate 86 of them, and the calendar for closing the 15 illegal landfills which are still operating is uncertain, as works to do so have not even began for most of them. According to the letter of formal notice, Romania has two months to respond, otherwise the EC will issue a reasoned opinion.

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