Puscas requests cost evaluation

Romania’s Negotiator for EU, Vasile Puscas, on Monday asked the economic operators to be very quick in answering the questionnaires on the costs and the financing sources, as well as the amount of time required by the Romanian industry to meet the European environment protection standards. Romania has requested 11 transition periods for the “Environment” negotiation chapter and if it wants them granted by the EU it needs to prove why the European environment protection norms for various sectors cannot be applied as of the accession moment. “We’re asking the economic operators to provide us with the data requested by the Environment Ministry through the questionnaires sent in April, as soon as possible. Or else we will have no arguments to get the transition period requested. This will not be good for the economic operators, which will have to make the necessary investments to comply with the European standards by 2007 instead of a longer period of time. In the absence of such a transition period after accession, the failure to comply with the Union requirements will result in serious consequences that may range from fines to closing the polluting companies (…),” Puscas said. ZF