Preliminary assessment of the fourth payment request of Romania

Administration “Romanian Waters” (Administrația Națională Apele Române) and the National Environmental Protection Agency (Agenţia Naţională pentru Protecția Mediului). Where these assessments specify mitigating measures as necessary to ensure compliance, these shall be included in the project design. The Commission verified this through analysis of the following documentary evidence:

The DNSH analysis by sub-project (Evidence No. 41 to 59), which is part of the project design documentation, includes an analysis which specifies that implementation of the project will be subject to obtaining a water permit, includes the measures to avoid or mitigate harm to the good status or good ecological potential of the affected water bodies and concludes that the sub-projects do not do significant harm to water and marine resources.

Furthermore, pursuant to the Water Law No. 107/1996 (legea apelor, hereinafter referred to as “the Water Law”), which transposes the Water Framework Directive, the competent Water Basin Administration assesses whether the measures in the project design are sufficient to be compliant with the applicable water protection requirements, including the obligation to prevent deterioration of water status under Article 4 of the Water Framework Directive. Accordingly, the competent Water Basin Administration for each river basin has issued a water management permit (aviz de gospodarira a apelor) for each sub-project (Evidence No. 60 to 78). The permits summarise the technical elements in the feasibility studies (Evidence No. 22 to 40) and measures to avoid harm in the DNSH analysis (Evidence No. 41 to 59) on the basis of which the Water Basin Administration decided to grant the permit, stating that these must be respected. Finally, pursuant to Law No. 292/2018 on the assessment of the impact of certain public and private projects on the environment (lege privind evaluarea impactului anumitor proiecte publice și private asupra mediului), the National

Environmental Protection Agency has issued Environmental Protection Agency decisions (decizia etapei de încadrare) for each sub-project (Evidence No. 79 to 97). These also include the technical elements and measures to avoid harm on the basis of which the Agency has reached its decision and confirm that no further environmental impact assessment is necessary.

As illustrative examples, the evidence includes, among others, mitigating measures for the following sub-projects:

• • For the sub-project Izvorul Negru:

o The DNSH analysis states that the reduction of potentially floodable areas will be accompanied by measures to retain the volume of water in the river (Evidence No. 43, page 4). This includes, among others, protecting riverbanks from erosion through ecological works. In the overview of characteristics of the works set out in the technical documentation on the basis of which the permit is issued, the water permit refers to vegetative works as a measure to stop erosion (Evidence No. 62, page 4), stating that these must be respected. The Environmental Protection Agency decision refers to this measure in the overview of characteristics of the project (Evidence No. 81, page 2), which informed the conclusion that the project has no significant impact on the environment.

• • For the sub-project Bucșoita:

o The DNSH analysis states that selective waste collection will be ensured (Evidence No. 52, page 6). This is reflected in the water management permit, which requires waste materials removal (Evidence No. 71, page 10).

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