Romania received a warning on Wednesday for failing to fully comply with the Landfill and Waste Framework Directives despite having already been fined by the European Court of Justice in December, euractiv.com informs. According to the Commission, Romania has successfully closed and rehabilitated 92 landfills and plans to address five more by 2026-2028. However, the situation for four others remains uncertain despite ambitious targets to send less than 10% of municipal solid waste generated to landfills by 2035. Environment, Water and Forests Minister Mircea Fechet has stressed the urgency of closing or rehabilitating at least 31 hazardous and non-hazardous industrial waste sites to avoid EU fines. During a site visit to Sofert Bacau, a 16-hectare dangerous waste landfill in north-eastern Romania, Fechet highlighted the daily fines of €18,000 incurred by this site alone, which has been storing hazardous phosphogypsum industrial waste since communist times. Today, a significant amount of recyclable material still ends up in landfills rather than in factories, while Romania is still unable to control waste imports, the minister said in an earlier statement. On 14 December, the EU Court of Justice (CJEU) imposed a fine of €1.5 million on Romania, along with daily penalties of €600, for delays in closing non-compliant waste dumps. The CJEU noted that the failure to fulfil obligations has lasted more than four years since 2018, described as “a considerable duration”. In addition, the CJEU pointed to “a significant risk of pollution and serious consequences for human health, in particular through the release of harmful chemicals into soil, air and water”.
Romania was formally designated the 43rd country to join the US Visa Waiver Program (VWP) on Friday, January 10. According to the Romanian ambassador to Washington, Andrei Muraru, Romanian citizens will be able to travel to the US without the need for a visa starting March 31, 2025. "Romania becomes the first country in the […]
Cluj-Napoca, the city in Romania with some of the highest rents and a fast-growing IT industry, is closer to banning smoking in playgrounds and parks after mayor Emil Boc expressed his support for the measure. The mayor cited the prioritization of public health as the reason behind such a ban. He mentioned that he has […]
Romania's Sibiu County Emergency Clinical Hospital will receive a robotic system to prepare cytostatic drugs needed by cancer patients, along with other equipment, after the County Council obtained funds from the European Regional Development Fund. With an estimated value of EUR 1 million, the "Robotic Composition System for Sterile Preparations of Cytostatic Drugs" is among […]
Romania’s government adopted in its January 10 meeting a decision granting an extra day off to public sector employees at the beginning of May. Thus, Friday, May 2, will be an official day off for public sector workers, linking the legal holiday of May 1 (Labor Day) with the weekend (May 3-4). This...
The Ministry of Environment announced that 2024 was the hottest year in the history of Romania's meteorological records. Red alerts for heat waves began in June of 2024, with the longest consecutive periods of persistent and intense heat waves, six consecutive days, between July 13-18 and August 15-20. "The year 2024 is the hottest year...
Supporters of former presidential candidate Călin Georgescu gathered outside the Parliament Palace in Bucharest, which houses the Constitutional Court, on January 10, demanding a rerun of the second round of the presidential elections. The protest, dubbed "The Great Judicial Union," was initiated by Georgescu, who called on his supporters to challenge the election annulment, as […]
