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Commission urges ROMANIA to stop illegal logging
The Commission is urging Romania to properly implement the EU Timber Regulation (EUTR), which prevents timber companies from producing and placing on the EU market products made from illegally harvested logs.
In the case of Romania, the national authorities have been unable to effectively check the operators and apply appropriate sanctions. Inconsistences in the national legislation do not allow Romanian authorities to check large amounts of illegally harvested timber.
In addition, the Commission has found that the Romanian authorities manage forests, including by authorising logging, without evaluating beforehand the impacts on protected habitats as required under the Habitats Directive and Strategic Environmental Assessment Directives. Furthermore, there are shortcomings in the access of the public to environmental information in the forest management plans.
The Commission also found that protected forest habitats have been lost within protected Natura 2000 sites in breach of the Habitats and Birds Directives. Therefore, the Commission decided today to send a letter of formal notice to Romania, giving it one month to take the necessary measures to address the shortcomings identified by the Commission. Otherwise, the Commission may decide to send a reasoned opinion to the Romanian authorities.
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Groups of interest had people at the helm of the Environment Ministry to serve this purpose of cutting wood and steal from Romania's forests and I believe that Europe and the European Commission cared more for Romania's forests that the previous governments, dismissed Environment, Waters and Forests Minister Costel Alexe told a news conference on Wednesday.
"It's official: the European Commission, unfortunately, has activated the infringement procedure against Romania regarding the illegal cutting of forests. The decisions hasn't been made over night, the decision has been made after the European Commission waited three years regarding this topic (...) the only method intentionally enforced by those who led the previous Government and ministry was to endlessly postpone the implementation of some solutions which would have truly limited and stopped the illegal logging in Romania - and I refer here to the SUMAL [Automatic System to Track Wood Materials] and all the other applications which should have been implemented with priority by the Environment, Waters and Forests Ministry. (...) These things should have been done a long time ago, and the fact that groups of interest had people at the helm of the ministry to serve this purpose of cutting and stealing from Romania didn't lead to the implementation of those measures," Alexe said.
He said that, currently, "we are expecting the official correspondence of the commission and after analysing several dozens pages with the reasons invoked we will return with clarifications."
According to the Minister, on Friday, 14 February, he will have an official meeting with European Commissioner for Environment, Oceans and Fisheries Virginijus Sinkevicius, to whom he will present the measures envisaged by authorities in order to remedy the issues regarding the illegal logging in Romania.
"Three months have passed since I am in office and I have only one version at hand: to comprise the time as if years had passed and implement, as quickly as possible, the measures that can be taken in the interest of the forests in Romania. On Friday, I will go to Brussels where I will carry out a tete-a-tete meeting with the Environment Commissioner and I will tell him what we are committed to do, what we have started in these three months since being in office and how we will manage to limit, stop the illegal cutting in Romania," Costel Alexe mentioned.
The dignitary underscored that by the end of July 2020, the Automatic System to Track Wood Materials - SUMAL would become operational.
Alexe also maintained that important amendments are to be brought to the Forestry Code and the 112 system is to become operational even at the Environment Ministry.
The European Commission (EC) has sent on Wednesday a letter of formal notice to Romania and urged the country to properly implement the EU Timber Regulation (EUTR), which prevents timber companies in the wood sector to produce and place on the EU market products made from illegally harvested logs, a release of the Community Executive informs.
This letter of formal notice actually represents the official opening of the infringement procedure.