The Mayor of the Romanian capital of Bucharest Nicusor Dan has asked the European Commission to delay the initiation of infringement proceedings against the city that were brought forward in light of its high levels of pollution. Dan has stated that his administration will take concrete measures to clean up Bucharest and remedy the situation to the satisfaction of the EU’s executive.
Fixing long-standing problems
In a letter to the European Commission, Nicusor Dan has highlighted several of the projects that have already been approved which will tackle environmental pollution in Bucharest, including the rehabilitation of the district heating network, the allocations from the National Recovery and Resilience Plan for the district heating network and thermal enveloping of buildings, allocations from the European modernization fund for the modernization of 3 CHPs, expansion of the air quality monitoring network, in public procurement and increased collaboration of the Capital City Hall with the Environmental Guard (by seconding local police and using the laboratory mobile) to more severely sanction violations of environmental legislation.
Furthermore, he informed the Commission about the elaboration of a new Integrated Air Quality Plan in Bucharest, the first set of measures for green spaces, several projects for the electrification of road traffic and others.
“I responded to the European Commission on two infringement proceedings against Romania regarding the air quality in Bucharest – one related to the dust problem (PM10), another related to nitrogen oxide pollution (NO2).
In essence, we asked for a break to be judged on the results of this mandate, we showed the will of the new municipal administration to address sharply the issue of air pollution and we informed about concrete measures, already taken or that we will take, to reduce pollution,” explained the Romanian capital’s recently elected mayor.
Source: TheMayor.EU
