07/02/2008

Cluj-Napoca, 7 February 2008 – Following a communiqué released by Mediafax dated 6. February 2008, “Rosia Montana Gold Corporation (RMGC) has taken the Ministry for the Environment and Sustainable Development to court; as well as Minister Korodi and the State Secretary Stoica, due to the company’s dissatisfaction with the institution’s decision to interrupt the licensing procedure for the mine proposal.” Alburnus Maior and the Independent Centre for the Development of Environmental Resources (ICDER) would herewith like to express their position regarding the above-mentioned court action:

“Alburnus Maior and ICDER will formulate requests to intervene in the court action registered at the Bucharest Court of Appeal and encourage additional environmental NGOs to join. The intervention requests will aim at supporting the Ministry’s decision to suspend the procedure to issue an environmental accord for the Rosia Montana mine proposal. The NGOs’ interest to intervene is legitimate and justified given that over the course of the procedure to issue an environmental accord for the Rosia Montana mine proposal both NGOs promoted court actions for calling for the suspension and annulment of the urbanistic certificates obtained by RMGC. These ultimately aimed at suspending and terminating the environmental licensing procedure. Following the court verdicts that suspended the effects of urbanistic certificates 68/2004 and 78/2006, the two NGOs formulated requests and notifications requesting the Ministry for the Environment to suspend the licensing procedure until the irrevocable settlement of the administrative litigation cases in which the two NGOs contest the legality of the urbanistic certificates. Whilst to date the courts have not yet reached their final verdicts, urbanistic certificates are administrative acts that lie at the base of all licensing procedures carried out by RMGC in order to obtain the construction authorization for it’s mine proposal. The two NGOs consider that by suspending the procedure to issue the environmental accord the Ministry correctly applied the legislation on the authorization of construction works, legislation in the field of evaluating the impact on the environmental of private and public projects and legislation for issuing an environmental accord.

Alburnus Maior and ICDER consider that RMGC can not obtain a court sentence from the Bucharest Court of Appeal obliging the Ministry to restart the above-mentioned licensing procedure because the effects of the Alba Iulia Court of Appeal’s recent decision (case no. 1411/107/2007) concerning the illegality of Rosia Montana’s urbanistic plans oblige the Ministry to return to RMGC the entire environmental impact assessment (EIA) documentation as well as the request to obtain an environmental accord. Last but not least, the verdict taken by the Cluj-Napoca Tribunal in case no. 1245/117/2007 irrevocably annuls urbanistic certificate no. 78/2006 issued by the Alba County Council to RMGC.

Alburnus Maior and ICDER consider that RMGC’s parallel calls into justice of Minister Attila Korodi and State Secretary Silviu Stoica are unjustified, because RMGC can not claim and prove the prejudice caused to it by the Ministry’s decision to suspend the procedure and for which it wishes to hold the two public servants personally responsible. Even in the absence of the ministry’s decision to suspend the environmental licensing procedure, RMGC could not have obtained an environmental accord by now. This is easily proven because the documentation submitted by RMGC during the EIA procedure suffered from numerous additional deficiencies which would have made it impossible for the competent authority to issue an environmental accord. To give but one example, even to date RMGC does not have an approved Modified Urbanistic Zoning Plan for the Rosia Montana Industrial Development Area.  Such a plan needs to undergo a strategic environmental impact assessment procedure (under the European Union’s SEA procedure). According to the provisions of Law 350/2001 on territorial planning and urbanism (article 32, point 1), Law 50/1991 on the authorization of construction works (article 7) and Ministerial Order 117/2006 issued for the application of Governmental Decision HG 1076/2004 on the environmental impact assessment for plans and programs (paragraph 3.12, point 1), in the absence of such documentation the authority can not legally issue the environmental accord.

Alburnus Maior and ICDER will continue to use all civic and legal means at their disposal to ensure that the licensing procedures for the Rosia Montana proposal comply with all relevant legislation including on environmental impact assessment, on the authorization of construction works, protection of cultural patrimony, as well as fully comply with the public’s right to access to information, public participation and access to justice.”

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For more information please contact: Attorney Andreea Szabo (+4 0745 617968) and Attorney Marius Harosa (+4 0744 599 762).