The Minister of the Environment, Mircea Fechet, announced the drafting of an Emergency Ordinance of the Romanian Government, which, after adoption, aims at a series of measures regarding the extension of some deadlines and the modification of some normative acts, in order to create the National Agency for the Environment and Protected Areas.
Minister of the Environmentbrings to your attention that, based on the provisions of Government Decision No. 43/2020 on the organization and functioning of the Ministry of Environment, Waters and Forests, the ministry will continue to develop national policy in areas such as environmental protection, green economy, biodiversity, protected natural areas and waste management.
Mircea Fechet stressed the importance of this restructuring for alignment with the Government Program on State Reform. Government Emergency Ordinance no. 103/2024 established the establishment of the National Agency for the Environment and Protected Areas, a public institution with legal personality, financed from the state budget.
The agency will be responsible for implementing policies and legislation in the field of environmental protection and protected natural areas, being directly subordinated to the central authority for environmental protection.
The Minister of the Environment mentions in the Emergency Ordinance that the deadline for approving the Government's decision on the organization and functioning of the National Agency for the Environment and Protected Areas has been extended until March 31, 2025.
This extension was necessary to correlate the project with the guidelines in the Government Program and to integrate the feedback received following the public consultation, which included numerous observations and proposals from interested parties.
The Minister of the Environment will have 42 county environmental protection agencies under his control, with a total of 1.882 positions, and the National Agency for Protected Natural Areas, which will manage 490 positions dedicated to the management of protected areas.
In addition, the draft normative act also provides for the empowerment of the Ministry of Finance to make changes to the budgetary structure of the Ministry of Environment for 2025, thus ensuring the resources necessary for the efficient implementation of the new structures.
The amendment to Article 21 of Government Emergency Ordinance No. 57/2007 will stipulate that the approval of management plans for protected natural areas, with the exception of natural and national parks, will be carried out by the president of the National Agency for Environment and Protected Areas, after the entry into force of the decision to organize the agency.
This initiative underlines the government's commitment to improving environmental management and ensuring the protection of natural areas, in accordance with European standards and national needs.
