Low Danube levels put pressure on cooling the Cernavodă reactors: the Prime Minister gives a crisis committee 30 days

The low level of the Danube has turned into an energy security problem, not merely a navigation one. Through Decision no. 278/2026, published on Friday in the Official Gazette of Romania, the Prime Minister has set up an interministerial committee that has 30 days to identify the solutions for securing the cooling water for the reactors of the Cernavodă plant, both the existing ones and those to come. It is an emergency instrument, from the same family as the risk management tools the Government put in place through the risk preparedness plan for the electricity sector.

What makes the document unusual is the language of its preamble. Prime Minister’s decisions are, as a rule, organisational acts written in neutral terms. Here, the stated grounds say openly that there is a „critical situation regarding the securing of the water flow needed to cool the reactors, caused by the sharp fall in the level of the Danube” and that there is a „delay in the implementation of the investment projects” planned for the works in the bifurcation area of the Bala branch.

The decision was signed on 14 August 2026, one day after the letter by which the Ministry of Energy flagged the problem, registered under no. 43.506/SDE of 13 August 2026. The speed of the reaction, one day from the alert to publication in the Official Gazette of Romania, says by itself how urgently the matter was treated.

The stakes are spelled out in the act: the „pressing” need to guarantee baseload electricity generation, considered crucial for maintaining the safety of the National Energy System and for the uninterrupted operation of critical infrastructure. Baseload energy means the steady, permanently available output on which the balance of the grid rests.

What it changes in practice

The Bala Interministerial Committee is set up. It is a consultative body without legal personality, so it takes no enforceable decisions. Its role is to analyse and to propose, not to carry out.

It has three concrete objectives. First, analysing and proposing an update of the technical and economic indicators of the feasibility study for the works at critical point 01 Bala. Second, analysing and, where appropriate, reassessing the technical solutions set out in that study. Third, setting an implementation timetable and identifying the funding source.

The works are part of a navigation project, not of an energy one. Critical point 01 Bala belongs to the project „Improving navigation conditions on the Danube between Călărași and Brăila, km 375 – km 175”. In practice, an intervention designed for river transport becomes, through Friday’s decision, a question of water supply for a nuclear power plant.

The deadline is 30 days, with the possibility of an extension. The committee ceases its activity by operation of law once the final report is completed, if that comes sooner. An extension can be granted only through a new Prime Minister’s decision.

It can request data from public institutions and take over studies from outside the administration. The committee requests and analyses the technical information held by public authorities and institutions, but it may also take over studies, analyses or expert reports from private entities, universities or research centres.

It reports directly to the Prime Minister. Briefings whenever the situation requires them, and a final report that has to cover the conclusions of the analyses, proposals for updated technical and economic indicators, the technical solutions, the timetable and the funding sources needed.

The membership mixes the administration with the operator and with academia. The 11 members come from nine institutions, two of them with two representatives each: the Prime Minister’s Chancellery, the Ministry of Energy, the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure, the Ministry of the Environment, Waters and Forests, the „Apele Române” National Administration, the Lower Danube River Administration, CNE Cernavodă, the National Institute of Hydrology and Water Management and the Technical University of Civil Engineering of Bucharest. The technical secretariat, made up of 3 people, is provided by the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure.

What has changed compared with the previous situation

Until now, the works in the Bala area were treated as one component of a transport infrastructure project, moving at the pace usual for such a project. Decision no. 278/2026 shifts them into an emergency regime and ties them directly to the operation of the nuclear power plant.

The second change concerns the scope of the problem. The feasibility study already existed, with approved technical and economic indicators. Friday’s act opens the possibility that those indicators will be updated and that the technical solutions will be reassessed, which amounts to admitting that the project, as it was designed, may no longer match the situation on the ground.

The third change is one of horizon. The decision speaks not only about the reactors in operation, but also about nuclear reactors 3 and 4, which are at the development stage. Securing the water flow thus becomes a condition for expanding Romania’s nuclear capacity, not only for maintaining the capacity that already exists.

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