Two mining sites come off the closure lists, and the cessation of activity falls to the licence holder

Two items on the lists of mines and quarries approved for closure have been repealed, and the decision provides that the cessation of mining activity is carried out by the holder of the exploitation licence, from its own funds. The Government has adopted Decision no. 612/2026, published on Friday in the Official Gazette of Romania, amending two acts from 2006 and 2007 which approved the definitive closure and the post-closure monitoring of environmental factors at a number of mines and quarries. Also in the environmental field, the Government updated this summer the national air pollution control programme, which lists the withdrawal of lignite capacity among the sources of the emission reductions achieved so far.

The definitive closure of mines and quarries has been approved by the Government in stages. Stage IX was approved by Government Decision no. 1.008/2006, published in Official Gazette of Romania no. 692 of 14 August 2006, and stage X by Government Decision no. 644/2007, published in Official Gazette of Romania no. 469 of 12 July 2007. Annex no. 1 to each of them contains the List of mines and quarries to be closed in the respective stage. Both have been amended since: the new decision cites each of them „with subsequent amendments”.

Friday’s decision repeals one item from each list. Out of stage IX goes item no. 51, listed under point XV of the annex, a point that carries the name of the national salt company, Societatea Națională a Sării SALROM S.A. București. Out of stage X goes item no. 48, with no further detail. The act does not reproduce the two annexes and does not say what site sits at either of the two items, not even whether it is a mine or a quarry.

The text contains no statement of reasons. The act invokes as its sole legal basis article 108 of the Constitution of Romania, republished, and sets out no findings of fact: it does not say whether the sites have already been closed, whether activity has resumed, whether the licence has been transferred or whether anything else has intervened. The decision confines itself to the two repeals and to a single substantive rule.

What it changes in practice

The cessation of activity is carried out from the licence holder’s own funds. Article III deserves to be read as it stands, because it is the only substantive rule in the decision: „The cessation of mining activity is carried out by the holder of the exploitation licence, from its own funds, in accordance with article 39 paragraph (1) letter p) of Mining Law no. 85/2003, with subsequent amendments and additions.” The wording is general, without saying expressly that it concerns the sites at articles I and II, but the decision has no object other than the two repeals.

The two sites no longer appear in stages IX and X. With the items repealed, the definitive closure and the post-closure monitoring of environmental factors for these sites are no longer carried out under the two stages approved by the 2006 and 2007 decisions.

The content of the obligation is to be read in the Mining Law, not here. Article III does not reproduce article 39 paragraph (1) letter p) of Mining Law no. 85/2003; it merely refers to it. What that provision lays down, and on what conditions, can be verified only in the Mining Law.

The act lays down no rule on post-closure monitoring. Both amended decisions covered the definitive closure as well as the post-closure monitoring of environmental factors. Article III, however, covers only the cessation of mining activity, and the phrase appears in Friday’s decision only in the cited titles of the two amended decisions, with no rule following it. Who carries out the monitoring afterwards at the sites taken off the lists, and who bears its cost, does not follow from this act.

The Prime Minister signs, and three of the six countersignatures are given on behalf of the office-holder. The decision is signed by Prime Minister Ilie-Gavril Bolojan, and the countersignature block covers six entries. Three of them carry the marker „p.”, short for „pentru”, meaning signed on behalf of the office-holder: Cristian-Gabriel Seidler, secretary of state, signs for the Deputy Prime Minister who is also the Minister of National Defence; Marius-Andrei Miftode, secretary of state, signs for the Minister of Economy, Digitalisation, Entrepreneurship and Tourism; and Petru Farago signs for the Secretary General of the Government, without the act stating his office. Signing in their own name are the Head of the Prime Minister’s Chancellery, the President of the National Regulatory Authority for Mining, Petroleum and Geological Storage of Carbon Dioxide, and the Minister of Environment, Waters and Forests. What a licence holder owes the State can change while the licence runs: in September 2026 the Court held that a mining royalty may be raised in the middle of a licence already granted.

What has changed compared with the previous situation

Until Friday, the two sites appeared on the lists in annexes no. 1 to the 2006 and 2007 decisions, as amended to date, alongside the other mines and quarries in stages IX and X. Since Friday, they no longer do.

What that means in money does not follow from the decision. The act nowhere speaks of funding, budget or public money. The only financial mention is „from its own funds”, in article III, about the holder of the exploitation licence. How the works under stages IX and X were funded can be read only in the 2006 and 2007 decisions and in the Mining Law, not in this act.

The second difference concerns the timetable. The decision sets no deadline for the cessation of activity and does not say what deadlines, if any, the 2006 and 2007 annexes contained, since it does not reproduce them. All that follows from this act is that the timing depends on the holder of the exploitation licence.

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