The European Commission has accepted that the waste tax at the landfill to be operational from January 1st, 2019, thereby obtaining a derogation, said on Thursday the Minister of Environment Gratiela Gavrilescu, at her hearing in the Joint Environment Commissions from the Parliament. “We are interested that the citizen does not pay if he has not been taught, informed and not told exactly what he has to do. The European Commission has agreed that the tax that we should implement at the landfil should be 80 lei as of January 1st, 2017. Romania is not prepared, in order to implement this tax. That is why we obtained a derogation until January 1st, 2019, which will be put into operation by an emergency ordinance”, said Gavrilescu, according to Agerpres. She said that immediately after the Government will be invested, this ordinance would be approved.
The joint environment commissions for environment from the Parliament gave Leocadia Gratiela Gavrilescu a favorable opinion on Thursday for the position of Deputy Prime Minister and for the position of Minister of Environment. It was endorsed with 17 votes in favor and 6 against. In mid-January this year, the former Minister of Environment Daniel Constantin showed that the 80 lei per ton of waste deposited at the landfill will be paid by the sanitation operators and will be applied to the difference between the target of capitalization they have proposed and what they have actually achieved.
While G.E.O. 31/2013 regulated the progressive taxation of storage, starting with 50 lei/ ton from 2014, 80 lei/ton from 2015 and 120 lei/ton, starting with 2016, Law 384 introduces the tax increase to 80 lei/ton of 2017, respectively 120 lei/ton, only in 2018. Romania should have had introduced the waste tax at the landfill, worth 80 lei per each ton, starting with January 2016, and the money obtained should have reached the Environmental Fund.
The European Commission decided on February 15th to sue Romania at the European Court of Justice (ECJ) because the authorities failed to close 68 non-compliant municipal landfills representing a serious risk to human health and environment, informs a press release of the Communitary Executive.
ROMANIA RECYCLES ONLY 2-3% OF THE WASTE
Romania is at a recycling rate of 2-3%, being close to the last place in the European Union, said Gavrilescu. “We are currently recycling 2-3%. We are almost the last of the European countries. That is why we must make every effort to ensure that in the coming period, through all the methods we apply, through the information guide that includes mandatory procedures for everyone that we will also do by accessing European funds. The file has been submitted. At national level, we have to campaign for this collection, to explain to every citizen the advantage of this selective collection”, said Gavrilescu.
She specified that the National Waste Management Plan should have been ready in November last year. “We are extremely late. We found this plan at the consultant. I asked the consultant within 10 days of taking over the mandate to come forward to hand over the National Waste Management Plan to the ministry so that it can enter in the public consultation and at the same time, to be able to notify and enter strategic environmental assessment, fact that has happened. Meanwhile, we have been sent to the European Court of Justice including the National Waste Management Plan. I thought it would be appropriate to personally go to the European Commissioner for Environment and to have discussions about what is happening in Romania with the selective collection and why we have not been able to meet our targets so far. We have obtained a lot of things that we couldn’t even think of”, said the proposed minister for Environment.