The Mihaileni dam project will continue, and all documentation will be redone in full compliance with legal requirements, Environment Minister Diana Buzoianu said on Monday during the Government Question Time in Parliament. She stressed that public debate around the project has been distorted by repeated misinformation, creating confusion even among MPs.
According to the minister, the situation is neither a crisis nor a political conflict, since all parties want the same outcome: a functional and safe dam. Instead, she described the controversy as a "populist scandal" surrounding an infrastructure project that should have been strategic but was weakened over time by legally vulnerable documentation.
Buzoianu emphasized that the essential question is whether Romania wants to build infrastructure "legally and safely" or continue relying on flawed documents that expose projects to legal challenges. She underlined three key facts about the Mihaileni accumulation: the dam body has been completed since 2022; in 2024 and 2025 it successfully retained 5.5 million cubic meters of water and it protected 17,000 people from flooding. "To claim that its flood-protection role is blocked is a lie,", the minister said, adding that the project will indeed move forward.
She explained that the court decision that triggered the current debate annulled an approval issued more than 40 years ago.
"A court annulled an approval from 1987 - not the Environment Ministry," she noted. Presenting this as a surprise, she argued, is misleading, especially when some of the same voices who demand "fast-tracked approvals" later criticize the lack of legal robustness. "The truth is that things must be done more thoroughly, and at Mihaileni they will be done with full respect for the law," she said, adding that all documents will be redone and completed properly.
The minister also clarified that work at the dam has not stopped. Activities covered by approvals issued in the past two years are ongoing, as those approvals were not part of the litigation. However, she acknowledged that delays are inevitable - a cost borne by the public due to decades of "improvisation and poorly executed work".
Following the court's final ruling, the Crisuri Water Basin Administration (ABA Crisuri) convened the project designer, and the feasibility study is already being redone, Buzoianu continued. ABA Crisuri, together with the Prefecture, Hunedoara County Council, Bucesti City Hall, and the Hunedoara Environmental Protection Agency, is preparing all necessary documents and urban planning certificates. Once these are obtained, the Environment Ministry will be able to issue a new Government Decision to reapprove the updated project indicators, she mentioned.
Buzoianu also pointed to a broader structural issue: insufficient funding for critical flood-protection infrastructure. She noted that the initial 2024 budget allocated only 50 million RON (around 10 million euros) for all dams in Romania. After negotiations, the amount was raised to 150 million RON, but this remains far below what is needed. "You are asking whether we have enough money this year for a single project, when that would require a third of the entire national budget for dams," she said. The fundamental problem, she argued, is the chronic underfunding of essential infrastructure, which can only be solved by creating mechanisms that bring more resources into the system.
Buzoianu rejected claims circulating in Parliament that the Environment Ministry opposes critical infrastructure. On the contrary, she said, strategic interest in such projects goes hand in hand with legal security. "No road, no highway, no construction, no dam can exist safely if it is not legally secure," she stated. The ministry does not choose "between environment and people," but insists on legally sound projects that cannot later be overturned in court.
Regarding Mihaileni, the official reiterated that all necessary documents will be submitted to ensure the dam is no longer legally vulnerable. She also questioned how many other projects have been blocked over time due to political haste and how much political scandal each such case has generated. "We need work done thoroughly - and we will do it," Minister Buzoianu concluded.
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