30/01/2008
Rosia Montana/Romania, 30. January 2008 – Rosia Montana’s Local Council is scheduled to meet tomorrow to debate and vote on whether to modify Rosia Montana’s General Urbanistic Plan (PUG). This comes after the submission of 100 petitions by locals from Rosia Montana. Their petitions request the Local Council to adopt an updated PUG; one which allows on Rosia Montana’s territory the development of activities, services and infrastructure that are incompatible with the Rosia Montana mine proposal. These are agriculture, services, tourism etc. The petitions also request the ecologic rehabilitation of the areas where Minvest SA, the state owned mining company, had been active as well as further rehabilitation works and action plans to protect Rosia Montana’s cultural patrimony.

The General Urbanistic Plan (PUG) of the Rosia Montana commune was entirely financed by Rosia Montana Gold Corporation (RMGC) and was adopted by Rosia Montana’s Local Council in July 2002. Its aim has been to give way to the permitting process for the mining proposal while at the same time blocking any other economic activities at Rosia Montana. This included any local initiative to develop activities in tourism, agriculture or services as well as the interdiction to build new constructions on ones own private property.  According to the petitioners, the PUG and its conditions was violating their constitutional rights to a private life and to a free economic initiative.

Ever since the PUG entered into force, members of the Alburnus Maior NGO contested it due to the flagrant irregularities at its very base. At the same time they also as requested its modification in order create a real base for alternative development at Rosia Montana. Following a legal action initiated by Alburnus Maior, the Alba Iulia Court of Appeal recently passed an irrevocable judgement  declaring illegal the PUG voted in July 2002.
Within the framework of a project entitled Community Organising at Rosia Montana which is carried out by Alburnus Maior and financed by the World Bank’s Small Grants program, concrete steps were identified by which the local community can mobilise to resolve stringent problems. The modification of the PUG was identified as a priority by the locals. Their arguments for this choice where : the absence of the locals permission to transfer their private properties into an industrial area when the PUG was adopted in 2002; the violation of the terms defined by the PUG with regards to the relocation of the population and the interdiction to build any construction in order for the remaining population to start new economic initiatives; a right guaranteed by Romania’s Constitution. 

In reply to the petitions, Rosia Montana Gold Corporation (RMGC) , the company intending to develop the mine, wrote an official letter  to the Local Council suggesting that the councillors may well suffer personal damages by any potential modification of the PUG. Beside the fact that this action does not seem consistent with the company’s claims to have a partnership with the local community, the project owner’s letter highlights the fact that it holds a mining concession to exploit the Rosia Montana perimeter. In reality however this license was obtained via the transfer of Minvest’s license and thus foresees the exploitation of a much smaller perimeter – the Carnic and Cetate massif. At the request of RMGC, these perimeters were however closed down in June 2006.

"Alburnus Maior has for the past six years encouraged locals to develop businesses as an alternative to mining. Project proposals were submitted on a constant basis. The results were hardly visible due to the fact that no activity other than the RMGC proposal was allowed to develop at Rosia Montana. It is neither legal nor moral that in a state of law an area is reserved in such an unlimited manner for an activity that is shrouded in corruption and build on the violation of the directly affected population’s constitution rights. After all, the locals from Rosia Montana were not allowed to build any constructions; not even on their own private properties. Alburnus Maior will continue to encourage locals who wish to develop activities alternative to mining and will also represent those wishing to start legal actions on the basis of the violation of their constitutional rights to a private life and a free economic initiative,” declared Sorana Olaru Zăinescu, Alburnus Maior’s Sustainable Development Coordinator.  
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For more information please contact Sorana Olaru Zăinescu at +40 745 188 444 or via email at alburnusmaior@ngo.ro