Romania risks escalation of the protected-area infringement case to the ECJ

Romania risks escalation of the protected-area infringement case to the ECJ

Agent Green launches episode 7 of “A National Massacre” today

Bucharest, 5 December 2022 – Agent Green warns that abusive logging is out of control even in protected natural areas, with an imminent risk that the European Commission’s (EC) infringement case will escalate to the European Court of Justice (ECJ). The environmental organisation today publishes episode 7 of the “A National Massacre” series, illustrating the current situation in Romania’s protected areas covered by the infringement proceedings initiated by the EC in February 2020 following formal complaints submitted by Agent Green in partnership with Client Earth and EuroNatur in autumn 2019.

Episode 7 of “A National Massacre” is available for free download and distribution on VIMEO and YouTube. The film focuses on abusive logging in old-growth forests where Agent Green investigators encountered aggressive workers and incompetent representatives of the authorities.

The current situation is enabled by several factors: market demand (especially for biomass and construction timber), legislation discouraging timber theft that has been weakened by the current government, the poor performance of oversight authorities and the lack of involvement of affected local communities. Agent Green has also sent the EC the report (PDF in English) presenting concrete cases of logging in protected areas while the infringement proceedings are underway. The organisation has also informed the prime minister’s Control Body about the ten methods of theft (PDF in Romanian) that bypass SUMAL 2.0, methods facilitated in the last two years by the environment ministry itself. In a letter sent to Agent Green on 29.11.2022, the prime minister’s Control Body states that the investigation has been taken over by IGPR.

“The situation on the ground, also visible in satellite images, is the one known to the European Commission and denied by the environment ministry. The ministry does not acknowledge its failure and is complicit in an ongoing massacre. This will inevitably take us to the European Court of Justice, and we are deeply concerned. The minister may change, but the disaster in the forest will soon become the disaster in our pockets, because the fines will total millions of euros in public money and will apply daily, both retroactively and for every day of delay in remedying the problems,” warns Gabriel Păun, president of Agent Green.

The problems to be remedied concern both legislation and its enforcement. To have the 2019 complaint accepted, Agent Green had to demonstrate systemic problems across large areas that had already been adjudicated by Romanian courts. More than 500,000 hectares of Natura 2000 protected areas of European interest (8% of the national forest fund) were documented to build the infringement case. There were hundreds of cases in which Agent Green took the Environment Ministry, ANPM, the Forest Guard and Romsilva to court. These court cases saved tens of thousands of hectares from logging, for which the environment ministry had approved abusive forest management plans without environmental impact assessment studies. Yet even so, the court decisions were not respected by the forest administrator or the logging companies, while law enforcement bodies were also absent in these cases of abuse.

Moreover, draft law Pl-x 317/2022 is being fast-tracked through Romania’s Parliament and seeks to undermine the rule of law in Romania by blocking access to justice in environmental protection matters. There are at least 5 arguments of unconstitutionality on which this draft law is currently being challenged before the Constitutional Court: lack of sound justification, infringement of the right of free access to justice, infringement of international rules, infringement of the principle that justice is unique, impartial and equal for all, and infringement of the principle of legal certainty.

“We are witnessing an unprecedented onslaught by the forest mafia against those who defend the forest. The only legal levers we have left are the European institutions and international treaties ratified by Romania too, such as the Aarhus Convention,” Păun concluded.

Press contact: office@agentgreen.org