Environmental Ministry to use blockchain-tech-based public consultation system

The Ministry of the Environment, Waters and Forests (MMAP) will use in its public consultation processes the e-consultare.ro platform, a tool that facilitates in an interactive way the involvement of citizens in establishing and verifying the feasibility of projects proposed, Environmental Minister Costel Alexe told as news conference on Wednesday.

"Once again, this instrument is designed to increase the degree of democratisation of the decision-making process, and it will bring the citizens where they should be, to the table of decisions of any ministry in this government. I hope that this system of consultation, this platform, will soon be taken over by other government ministries. There are few institutions even at European level that benefit from and use this new technology. Obviously, it is the beginning of an inevitable evolution in the public consultation system. The platform facilitates in an interactive way the involvement of the citizens in establishing and verifying the feasibility of the proposed projects. Various topics would often be put up for public consultation that, unfortunately, after being adopted would be found out of line with the opinion or vision of the country's citizens. The e-consultare.ro platform is an open, collective and transparent approach to the decision-making process in the area of the environment and, personally, I consider it a big and important step in this digitisation process that Romania needs very much, " said Alexe.

He added that e-consultare.ro is a first in Romania, and the company developing the platform carried out the project voluntarily.

He added that topics such as: implementing the "Guarantee - Deposit" system, increasing the collection and recycling or tightening sanctions for illegal logging are being debated on the new platform.

At a news conference on Wednesday, Alexe unveiled the first on-line consultation and voting platform in Romania based on a blockchain system.

The platform, which uses the most modern cryptographic methods to secure the personal data of citizens who register and vote using this electronic tool, was built by Modex, a company specialising in Blockchain technology, part of the M3 Holdings group founded by Romanian Mihai Ivascu.

In 2019, Modex opened its first US office in Silicon Valley.

In May 2020, the company announced that it had been accepted into the C5 Accelerate business accelerator in the US as one of three companies chosen in this year's spring cohort.