Historic decision in the fight for environmental protection in Romania. What’s new about the decision of the Cluj Court of Appeal that annulled the environmental approval for the Rovina mega-project

“The decision of the judges is not only a victory for Rovina, but a clear signal that the rights of local communities and the protection of the environment are a priority. The court’s decision marks a crucial moment in the fight for the protection of the environment in Romania,” said Roxana Pencea Brădățan, from the Declic Association, after, at the end of last week, the Cluj Court of Appeal definitively annulled the environmental approval for the Rovina mining project . The court held that a cross-border consultation was mandatory and from the perspective of climate change, not even the local communities actually being consulted.

Without the environmental permit, Samax SRL, the Romanian subsidiary of the Canadian company Euro Sun Mining, has no way to start the mega-project for the exploitation of gold and copper, which would have left behind two huge craters in Apuseni, but also a pond with millions tons of toxic substances.

The decision comes after the Ministers of the Environment in recent years ignored civic appeals requesting that a project of such scope be evaluated and approved by a central authority, not by a county agency, an aspect that Clean Romania has already written about, here :

Huge VICTORY in Justice, for the locals, the waters and the forests of Apuseni. The environmental approval of a destructive project bigger than the one in Roșia Montană, definitively cancelled!

Behind this victory is an intense mobilization of local residents and non-governmental organizations, which highlighted serious problems in the environmental impact assessment of the project. Practically, this is the third project, after those from Roșia Montană and Certej that failed to obtain either legal approvals and authorizations, or the social license – more precisely, the real support of the communities, despite the advertising statements of the companies and the authorities.

The project, which envisaged gold and copper mining in a vast area of ​​Hunedoara County, raised serious concerns about its environmental and social impact. The decision of the Cluj Court of Appeal represents a recognition of the constant efforts of the Declic Association and the Ecou Rovina Bucharest Association, which claimed that the environmental opinion was issued without an adequate assessment of the cross-border impact and without adequate consultations with local communities and neighboring states, it is stated in the activists’ press release.

“By the Decision of the Cluj Court of Appeal dated 25.04.2024, the sentence handed down by the Cluj Court was upheld by which the environmental notice no. 7 for not completing the cross-border procedure in the strategic environmental assessment (SEA) stage. This is a landmark decision as it was held (among other things) that it was mandatory to start the cross-border consultation procedure and from the perspective of climate change. We welcome the decision of the Cluj Court of Appeal and await with interest the reasoning”, said Roxana Mândruțiu, partner lawyer at Revnic, Cristian and associates, the firm that represented the Declic Association in court.

The criticism brought by Declic lawyers also targeted the lack of experience of the Canadian company Euro Sun Mining in the responsible management of toxic waste, given that this is the company’s first project. Unlike the Roșia Montană and Certej projects, the Rovina project is entirely owned by a private company, without the participation of the Romanian state.

Read on Clean Romania:

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LAST TIME: The company that sued us for Roșia Montană won another million dollars, based on the recent decisions of the Ciolacu Government. Not for the payment of debts to Romania, but for contesting them!

Because the Ciolacu Government is “still thinking”, civil society has opened a lawsuit against the extension of the mining license from Roșia Montană