We take no pleasure in cutting ribbons for projects that never actually end up generating the energy they were originally intended to produce, Minister of Environment, Waters and Forests Diana Buzoianu told an energy conference on Wednesday.
"When I arrived at the Ministry of Environment, I found four major hydropower projects on my desk, projects where the environmental permits had been under debate for decades. Within a year and a half, I have already signed three of these permits, and the final one has been released for public consultation and is set to be signed in the coming days. However, I approached this by engaging in much more rigorous discussions regarding the conditions attached to these permits. I like to think that, having navigated these highly technical discussions, we have introduced much clearer monitoring mechanisms; these ensure that local communities can rest assured the water resource will remain available to them, even with these investments in place. Ultimately, people want investment, but they also want to feel secure alongside those projects. We know that Romania is one of the countries likely to face the greatest pressure regarding water access; therefore, when we consider critical energy investments, we must aim to implement them while ensuring their long-term sustainability. None of us takes pleasure in cutting ribbons on projects that ultimately fail to generate the energy they were originally designed to produce. I believe that, from the perspective of the Minister of Environment, a balance can be struck," Buzoianu pointed out.
The head of the Environment Ministry said that the timeframes for environmental permits have been reduced from six months to a maximum of 45 days across various stages of obtaining these documents.
"We did this after holding serious discussions with the European Commission, securing their agreement so we wouldn't risk facing sanctions later on. So, it is possible to improve existing laws and devise serious implementation stages that don't drag on for years. As long as the mandate is to act in the national interest and the shortened timelines for these stages are clearly communicated, it doesn't mean we'll skip the environmental assessment once the documents reach us. One of our key mandates focused specifically on cutting red tape; we are actually preparing to launch an audit of all the data requested by environmental authorities, a move I know will have a significant impact, including on the energy sector (...) Our goal is to simplify processes and establish a unified workflow where information is requested just once, allowing authorities under the Ministry of Environment to access those documents directly without asking for them again in a different format. Personally, I would have liked to see this audit cover multiple ministries simultaneously. However, we didn't reach that point when the solution was first proposed; there was neither the desire nor the political consensus for it," explained Diana Buzoianu.
Specialists and decision-makers from the energy and environment sectors are attending the opening conference of Energy Expo 2026 on Wednesday, an event taking place on September 24-25 at the Romaero site.
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