BERCEN plenary meeting - Budapest, September 9, 2002

Ministry of Waters and Environmental Protection, Romania

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BERCEN plenary meeting - Budapest, September 9, 2002

National key achievements in environmental enforcement and compliance, and proposals on

further BERCEN activities in ROMANIA


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New law, regulation, strategy

The approximation strategy for the sector “Horizontal legislation” was updated according to the new commitments assumed by Romania in the position paper for chapter 22 – Environment.

The Emergency Governmental Ordinance No. 91/2002 amending the Environmental Protection Law No. 137/1995 was adopted, which sets up the general organizing and functioning framework of the system instituted in order to ensure pollution prevention, environmental protection, monitoring of the activities with environmental impact, enforcement and efficiency of the imposed measures.



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The Emergency Governmental Ordinance No. 91/2002 it ensures a global legal framework on the environmental protection field in accordance with the acquis communautaire, allowing the possibility of total harmonization through the elaboration of the sectoral legislation:

- ensures the adoption of the definitions of terms used in the European environmental legislation

- introduces the compulsory procedure for environmental impact assessment

- introduces the integrated pollution prevention and control principle

- claims every citizen’s right to the information on the environment and the access to justice


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Through these amendments, the whole legal framework is improved and will allow the full transposition of the “horizontal legislation” sector directives of the acquis communautaire, and of the specific Directives on EIA and of the Directive No. 90/313/EEC on the freedom of access to information on the environment.


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New legislation which was adopted in 2002

Governmental Emergency Ordinance No. 91/2002 amending and completing the Environmental Protection Law No. 137/1995;

Governmental Decision No. 573/2002 for the approval of authorising procedures for the functioning of traders

Governmental Decision No. 572/2002 for the establishing of the model and content of the registering application and of the trader’s certificate of registration.

Ordinance no 27/2002 reglementing the activity of petitions solving and by the judiciary procedure

GD no 123/2002 which approve Law no. 544/2001 on the free access to the information of public interest and its norms


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New legislation which was adopted in 2002-continuation

Order No. 592/25.06.2002 of the Minister of Waters and Environmental Protection for the approval of the normative establishing the limit values, the threshold values and the assessment criteria relating to limit values for sulphur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide and oxides of nitrogen, particulate matter and lead, benzene, carbon monoxide and ozone in ambient air

Order No. 1103/2002 of the Minister of Waters and Environmental Protection for the approval of the Methodological Norms concerning the measurement and the analysis of emissions of the volatile organic compounds resulting from the storage and the distribution of petrol to terminals and gas stations.


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GD no 743/11.07.2002 on the establishment of the type approval procedure for the internal combustion engines to be installed in non-road mobile machinery and establisment of measures for reducing gazeous and pollutant particulates emissions from these engines.

GD no 349/2002 on the packaging and packaging waste management

GD no 162/2002 on the landfill of waste

GD no 128/2002 on the incineration of waste

GD no 662/2001 on the waste oils management, amended by the GD no 441/30.04.2002.


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GD no 188/2002 for the approval of Norms concerning wastewater discharge conditions into the aquatic environment.

Law No. 458/2002 concerning the drinking water quality

GD no. 188/2002 concerning the approval of the Action Program for groundwater protection and reduction of pollution of aquatic environment caused by certain dangerous substances discharged into the aquatic environment

GD no. 100/2002 for the approval of the Norms concerning the quality required of surface water intended for abstraction of drinking water and Normative concerning measurement methods and sampling frequencies and analyzing of water samples from surface


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GD no 118/2002 approving the Action Program for groundwater protection and reducing of pollution of aquatic environment caused by certain dangerous substances discharged into the aquatic environment

Governmental Emergency Ordinance no. 34/2002 on integrated pollution prevention and control (IPPC)

GD no. 189/2002 establishing the procedure for the award of Eco-label

Ministerial Order of MWEP no. 9/2002 for consume and production contingency of ODS in the A and E annexes of the Montreal Protocol


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Until the end of 2002 will be transposed the previsions of:

Council Directive No 88/609/EEC on the limitation of emissions of certain pollutants into the air from large combustion plants (LCP), amended by the Directive 2001/80/EC

Council Directive No 1999/13/EC on the limitation of emissions of volatile organic compounds due to the use of organic solvents in certain activities and installations (VOC)

Council Directive No 96/82/EC on the control of major accident hazards involving dangerous substances (SEVESO)


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Directive No 76/769/EEC on the approximation of laws, regulations and administrative provisions of the Member States relating to restrictions on the marketing and use of certain dangerous substances and preparations

Council Directive No 87/217/EEC on the prevention and reduction of environmental pollution by asbestos

Concerning the Regulation CEE 2455/1992 on the import and export of certain dangerous chemicals the draft law for the ratification of the Rotterdam Convention on the prior informed consent procedure for certain hazardous chemicals and pesticides in international trade has been elaborated and is under internal analysis by the specific directorates of the ministry.


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Organizational change/ improvement

In this year the organization of the Ministry of Waters and Environmental Protection was set up:

- Environmental Guard by GD 1167/ 21.11.2001,

- Environment Fund Administration by GD 1174/ 21.11.2001 for improvement the capacity for the implementation and control of legislation at national, regional and local level.


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Thus, at central level, by establishing the Environmental Guard, the General Commissariat of Environmental Guard is a distinct compartment in the framework of Ministry of Waters and Environmental Protection, organized as general direction level and it has the role:

To organize, to coordinate and to control the activity of territorial units of Environmental Guard including the monitoring activity

To pursue activities for preventing and sanctioning the contravention and/or to inform the organisms of penal prosecution for the infractions in environmental protection field, including those with regional or boundary impact


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The establishment of National Agency for Environment Protection is one of the immediate priorities of the Ministry of Waters and Environmental Protection and its aim is to strengthen the institutional capacity and accommodation of the Romanian structures to those of European Union. In this sense, it is now being drafted a Government Decision on the establishment of the National Agency for Environmental Protection as public institution with legal personality and which will coordinate at both regional and local level the activity of the territorial units.


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New eguipment

• By REReP 1.7 “Strengthening National Environmental Protection Agencies and their Inspectorates in South Eastern Europe through the creation of a regional Balkan Environmental Regulation Compliance Enforcement Network” was achieved an gas analyzer for burn out emission for the improvement of monitoring capacity of Environmental Protection Inspectorate Oradea.

• By PHARE 2001 program will be achieve the equipment for controlling the air emissions(automatically analyzers) in 10 Environmental Protection Inspectorates from our country.


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New training program

Was organized by BERCEN 2 training programmes „Train the trainer 1” in the period 19-21 May 2002 and „Train the trainer 2” in the period 1-2 September 2002 for the Environmental Protection Agencies and Inspectorates in South Eastern European Countries.

In the future period we will organise the same training in Romania for the inspectors from the 42 Environmental Protection Inspectorates.

By PHARE 2001 program will be organized at the level of Environmetal Protection Inspectorates the training courses for implementing the previsions of IPPC, LCP and SEVESO II directives.


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Increase the number of personnelOur Environmental Protection Inspectorates are in charge to check the activities to have major impact in concordance with EIA Directive and the other economical activities with low impact will be check by the local authorities by their environment compartments.Environmental Protection Inspectorates will check the compliance of these environmental compartments from the local authorities concerning the respecting the previsions of the Urban General Plans .


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Activity of inspections and controls

In 2001 accidental pollution cases have become more rare by organising controls together with the water management authorities.After the introduction of this systems of controlling beginning with March 2001 we haven’t any major accidents.

There has been issued a number of 710 summonses for ceasing the activity. Regarding the cases of non-compliance 5,530 contravention fees have been applied with a total amount of 35 billion lei(approximately 1.2 millions Euro).

In 2002 was decreased the number of accidental pollution cases.

Between January – July 2002, at the level of the 42 EPIs and Administration for Biosphere Reservation of “Danube Delta” 2,150 fines in value of approx. 22 billions lei (approximately 721,000 Euro) were applied.


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Proposals for BERCEN activities in 2003

Training for environmental inspectors in juridical aspects regarding the EU directives and regulations;

Change of experience between agencies or inspectorates from the countries member of IMPEL/AC IMPEL;

Workshops for implementation of IPPC and SEVESO directives Dissemination of experience achieved by various countries in the process of UE legislation implementation;

Change of information concerning the elaborating of the national guides for implementing the Best Available Techniques in specific types of industries and generated waste; Set up a network at the level of BERCEN countries for implementing BAT.

Training concerning the modalities of elaboration of Actions Plans for different types of accidental pollution.

BERCEN plenary meeting - Budapest, September 9, 2002

Documents

Transcript of BERCEN plenary meeting - Budapest, September 9, 2002