Romania needs measures to support the concrete way in which a strategy is implemented, through sanctioning measures, where there is non-compliance, or through any other type of measures, so that “we manage to push the whole economy from behind”, a declared on Wednesday the Minister of the Environment, Waters and Forests, Mircea Fechet, at a conference on the circular economy.

“The strategy itself is not enough. Romania, in terms of strategies, whether we are discussing the adaptation strategy, climate change, action plans, I think we are the country with the most strategies per capita – and the big problem in relation to all these documents is that there is no “follow up”. (…) Everyone, in theory, after reading the document knows what they have to do, but I think the big problem is related to how we make sure that that strategy is put into application. I think this is the main challenge, that it belongs to the Ministry of the Environment, that it belongs to other ministries, I think that the great art is to come up with subsequent legislation that, through measures that support the concrete way in which we implement the strategy, through measures sanctions, where there is non-compliance or through any other type of measures – to manage to push the whole economy from behind, whether we are talking about the public sector, whether we are talking about the private sector and either encouraging them or penalizing them, to we ensure that from year to year we look at the paper and have some concrete figures”, said Mircea Fechet, quoted by Agerpres.

He stated that, in some situations, concrete things are missing to make the transition from theory, that is, from legislation, to practice.

“If we discuss the repair of electrical and electronic equipment, we still struggle. About 4 years ago I tried to write a ministerial order to regulate this process. I also visited several such mini-laboratory repair facilities, after which we -I got stuck with the minister’s order. I think we are the only country in the world that regulates the repair and reuse of electrical and electronic equipment, but we still lack concrete things to make the transition from theory, that is, from legislation, to practice, because we are in exactly the same situation as 5 years ago, 7 years ago, where the equipment lies, some of it very good to be reused, through all kinds of industrial halls and other such recycling factories, many end up shredded, many end up capitalized, but very few end up being re-introduced into the economy”, the minister added.