The European Commission (EC) on Wednesday decided to send a reasoned opinion to Romania for failing to comply with the Habitats Directive (Directive 92/43/EEC), according to a press statement released by the commission.Under the Habitats Directive, member states must propose sites of community importance, which will become part of the EU-wide Natura 2000 network. After a site has been endorsed by the European Commission, the member state has six years to designate it as a Special Area of Conservation and to establish conservation objectives and measures that will maintain or restore the protected species and habitats to a favourable conservation status.These are key requirements to manage the Natura 2000 network and to protect biodiversity across the EU. On 2 July 2020, the European Commission sent a letter of formal notice to Romania for failing to designate 382 sites of community importance as Special Areas of Conservation.The commission also found that Romania failed to set site-specific detailed conservation objectives for these sites. Since then, Romania has designated 213 Special Areas of Conservation, while 169 sites remain undesignated. Additionally, 16 sites do not have site-specific conservation objectives, and 208 sites have incomplete site-specific conservation objectives.Also, the conservation measures for 10 sites are too general to ensure an adequate protection of the habitats and species for which these have been designated.Therefore, the commission has decided to issue a reasoned opinion to Romania, which now has two months to respond and take the necessary measures. Otherwise, the Commission may decide to refer the case to the Court of Justice of the European Union.
The number of people in Romania at risk of poverty stood at 3.59 million people in 2024, 375,000 fewer than in 2023, representing a 9.4% decrease, according to data from the National Institute of Statistics, or INS. Despite the improvement, nearly one in five Romanians was affected by poverty last year. According to INS, 19% […]
The European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) in Cluj-Napoca carried out multiple searches on Tuesday, July 1, at the Sibiu International Airport and the Sibiu County Council as part of an investigation into suspected fraud involving a EUR 54 million EU-funded infrastructure project. A total of 24 locations were searched across Bucharest, Brașov, and Sibiu county, […]
A Romanian taxi driver who scammed 90-year-old Nigerian Nobel Prize laureate Wole Soyinka was detained by police on Sunday, June 29, according to media reports. On Friday, June 27, the venerable Nigerian arrived at Bucharest's Otopeni Airport. He got into a taxi and asked to be taken to a hotel downtown. At the destination, the […]
Costin Șerban, a Romanian entrepreneur, is digitalizing the construction sector in the United Kingdom with an ERP (enterprise resource planning) solution developed over 12 years and an investment of GBP 1.6 million (EUR 1.86 million). Șerban’s cloud-based ERP platform is called Abilo, was developed by the Romanian IT company Obi Systems, and is dedicated to […]
Border checks between Bulgaria and Romania have officially been lifted on July 1, as part of the implementation of the Schengen Agreement. The lifting marks the end of the transitional period of heightened control at the internal border, which had remained in place for six months following their accession to the Schengen area by land […]
Remus Vulpescu became CEO of the Bucharest Stock Exchange (BVB) on Tuesday, July 1, taking over from Adrian Tănase as the stock exchange grapples with a market dominated by government bonds. Vulpescu, 53, is a graduate in political and legal sciences from the University of Bucharest and holder of an EMBA obtained in 2017. He […]
