The legislation in Romania needs to be clarified, because at the moment it is interpretable and it takes years to get an opinion from the hordes of Romanian bureaucrats, said on Wednesday Bogdan Badea, president of Hidroelectrica, during a conference organized by InvestEnergy.

“The problem is the extremely long time in which we have to get the approvals from the hordes of officials we have created in Romania. We have to sound the alarm. Hidroelectrica has faced the situation in which the green projects we want to do are permanently blocked by the environmental authorities,” Badea said, according to Agerpres.

He pointed out that even the replacement of old equipment with new equipment requires an environmental permit, which lasts for years.

“When we replace old equipment with new equipment, we have to wait for years to get that environmental agreement. We only know when we start, we don’t know when this approval process ends, for example in Bumbeşti we started four years ago,” added the head of Hidroelectrica.

In his opinion, the solution is clarifying the legislation, so as not to leave room for interpretations by certain regional agencies.

“These are the small things that lead to extremely serious situations in the energy system. If we fail to clarify these elements, if we do not do something concrete, that 2030 is an extremely close horizon and we will have serious problems,” Badea underlined.

He said it was necessary for the authorities to establish a strategy so that investors know what to do.

“I think it’s a time when we have to put our feet in cold water, make a roadmap, know if we really want to have capabilities, if we want to invest in the Black Sea, we have to create this roadmap. We can’t decouple the investment plans of the producers, distributors, the TSO, it’s a time when we have to go in coordination. If we don’t prepare today, we won’t reach out target,” he added.