EditStagnant air: Romanian authorities fail to advance pollution monitoring despite untapped EU funds
The environmental ministry struggles with stalled modernisation as citizens breathe polluted air officially labelled as “green”
For more than five years, Romania’s Ministry of Environment, Waters and Forests has attempted to expand and modernise the country’s air quality monitoring network, but the process has been repeatedly delayed, the EUalive’s partner PressOne reports.
Although the project has been backed by EU funding through the Large Infrastructure Operational Programme (POIM) and later transferred to the Sustainable Development Programme (2021–2027), deadlines have slipped. Initially set for completion in 2023, the modernisation is now scheduled for November 2027.
The network, created over a decade ago, was exected to be upgraded with new infrastructure, including mobile laboratories and drone technology. Under the original plan, 21 mobile air monitoring laboratories – one for every two counties – were to be purchased with EU funds. The total value of the contract was over 30 million lei (5.9 million euro), with the second phase alone worth nearly 28 million lei (5.5 million euro), reimbursed through the Sustainable Development Programme.
A second major component of the project foresaw the acquisition of 46 unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) equipped with sensors, to be operated by regional environmental inspectorates. An accompanying online platform for managing drone data carried a separate price tag of 930,000 lei (183,000 euro).
Public contracts and familiar beneficiaries
PressOne obtained part of the contract list for the network’s expansion and modernisation. The most lucrative deal went to Orion Europe SRL, a company that had already supplied the ministry with equipment in 2014. Closely linked to the consultancy Westagem through their administrator, Mihai Ștefan Angheliu, Orion secured a framework agreement in January 2024 for developing and optimising Romania’s National Air Quality Monitoring Network (RNMCA), worth more than 215 million lei (42.2 million euro).
Another beneficiary, Technoinstrument Impex SRL, won a contract worth 16.8 million lei (3.3 million euro) to supply the 46 drones. According to public procurement data, these were earmarked for high-pollution risk counties such as Călărași, Dâmbovița, Giurgiu, Ialomița, Prahova, and the Danube Delta Biosphere Reserve. Mecro System SRL, a company that regularly supplies consumables and analytical equipment to state institutions, secured a smaller 23,000 lei (4,525 euro) contract to provide sampling materials, alongside its broader portfolio of contracts with health and energy institutions.
The Sebeș paradox: smog in the air, green on the screen
The small industrial town of Sebeș in Alba County illustrates the consequences of Romania’s monitoring delays. During the winter of 2024 – 2025, residents complained of heavy smog linked to the local industrial platform and Kronospan factory.
On cold winter evenings, the air in Sebeș began to have a strange consistency and the smog looked like it does in Lahore, Pakistan, complained its residents, where privately purchased sensors indicated exceedances of up to 40 times the pollutant values in the air. At the same time, the National Agency for Environmental Protection (ANPM) network consistently displayed “green” indicators on its official portal calitateaer.ro.
The municipality, which had purchased a mobile laboratory in 2019 from Mecro System SRL for 1.3 million lei (0.25 million euro), reported frequent breaches of PM10 daily limits. Independent citizens with private sensors also recorded pollutant levels dozens of times higher than official figures. In 2019, official data already showed 49 daily exceedances of PM10 limits, compared to the EU recommendation of no more than 35 per year. (PM10 refers to inhalble particulate matter with a diameter of 10 micrometers or less, small enough to be breathed into the lungs. It is a mixture of airborne particles including dust, smoke, and soot that can affect heart and lung health. Sources include natural dust, industrial processes, and combustion.)
The Sebeș Laboratory performs daily measurements for 15 air pollutants. Despite the fact that the measurements of the local authorities indicate massive and continuous air pollution, the data obtained are of no use, because they are not recognised as valid by the relevant authority, the APM and the Ministry of Environment, respectively.
Indeed, the Ministry of Environment continues to rely solely on national network data for official reporting and action, disregarding local and private monitoring. This gap leaves residents exposed to visible air pollution while official statistics insist conditions are within safe parameters.
The full article in Romanian can be found here.
Caption: The measurements of the Alba County Environmental Protection Agency and those carried out by the local municipality (which also operates a mobile laboratory) were for months diametrically opposed. PressOne
Updated: September 24, 2025 - 07:04
