In brief

  • The Constitutional Court has rejected the unconstitutionality objection raised by the President of Romania and upheld the law allowing hydropower plants approved before 29 June 2007 to be removed, at the investor’s request, from the boundaries of nationally protected natural areas within just 60 days.
  • The same law exempts from environmental impact assessment defence and national-security projects designated by the Supreme Council of National Defence (CSAT), as well as maintenance or modernisation works on existing electricity capacities located in protected areas.
  • The ruling is final and generally binding, but not unanimous: one judge wrote a dissenting opinion, arguing that the law should have been declared unconstitutional both for breaching bicameralism and for violating the right to a healthy environment.
Act: Constitutional Court Decision no. 735/2026
Published: Official Gazette of Romania (Monitorul Oficial) no. 640 of 3 August 2026
Delivered: 24 June 2026

The Constitutional Court has rejected the unconstitutionality objection raised by the President of Romania against a law that makes it easier for old hydropower plants to have areas removed from protected natural areas, and that exempts a series of national-security-related projects from environmental impact assessment. Decision no. 735/2026, published in the same issue of the Official Gazette of Romania that also contains the Constitutional Court’s rejection of the banks’ challenge over debt-for-asset settlement, confirms the constitutionality of a law that supplements Government Emergency Ordinance no. 57/2007 on protected natural areas and amends Law no. 292/2018 on environmental impact assessment. The law essentially aims to unblock old hydropower investments, approved decades ago but left stalled because they overlap with protected natural areas.

The law under review has two distinct components. The first (Art. I) adds a new exception to Government Emergency Ordinance no. 57/2007: if an area now located within a nationally significant protected natural area had, as of 29 June 2007, a hydropower investment objective approved by government decision or state decree, and already under way or started, the central environmental protection authority must remove that area from the protected area within 60 days of the investor’s request, while still keeping a buffer zone of at least 100 metres. The second (Art. II) amends Law no. 292/2018, extending the exemption from environmental impact assessment to projects designated by the Supreme Council of National Defence (CSAT) as related to defence, national security or emergency situations, as well as to maintenance, re-equipping or modernisation works on existing electricity generation or transmission capacities located in protected areas.

What it changes in practice

For companies that own or operate hydropower plants whose investments were approved by administrative acts before 29 June 2007 and which overlap with a nationally significant protected natural area (scientific reserve, national park, natural monument, nature reserve or natural park), the law opens up a fast and predictable route: a request to the Ministry of Environment, Waters and Forests, followed by a fixed 60-day deadline within which the area’s boundaries must be amended, without the more cumbersome and less predictable general procedure [Art. 56¹(3) of Government Emergency Ordinance no. 57/2007], which requires a scientific study and the opinion of the scientific council.

For projects related to defence, national security or emergency situations, designation through a CSAT decision effectively becomes the entry ticket to the exemption from the environmental impact assessment required by Law no. 292/2018, without the need for the joint, “case-by-case” analysis by the defence/security authority and the environmental authority previously required by law. The Court noted in its reasoning, however, that this individual analysis still exists, just moved to CSAT level: each project must be assessed separately before being included in a CSAT decision.

The practical effect for citizens and environmental organisations is rather indirect: the law does not, by itself, change the boundaries of any actual protected area; it merely creates the legal framework for the environmental authority to do so, at the investor’s request, through a subsequent administrative act. That act remains, in theory, separately challengeable before the administrative courts, and the situation differs where a nationally significant protected area overlaps with a “Natura 2000” site (protected under EU law): for such overlaps, the Habitats and Birds Directives, along with the obligation to carry out an environmental impact assessment, remain fully applicable, regardless of the exception in Romanian law.

What has changed compared with the previous situation

  • The law remains unchanged: the Court rejected the President’s objection and confirmed the full constitutionality of the law, both on procedural grounds (bicameralism, the Legislative Council’s opinion) and on the merits.
  • A new exception is added to the protected-areas regime: Art. 56¹ of Government Emergency Ordinance no. 57/2007 receives a new paragraph (8), allowing the automatic removal, within 60 days, of areas occupied by old hydropower plants (approved before 29 June 2007) from nationally significant protected natural areas, while keeping a 100-metre buffer zone.
  • The environmental assessment exemption is broadened: Art. 5(1) of Law no. 292/2018 now exempts, besides “single-purpose” defence/security projects, also projects that merely “contribute” to those purposes, if designated by a CSAT decision, plus maintenance/re-equipping/modernisation works on existing energy capacities located in protected areas.
  • The explicit “case-by-case” wording disappears from the text, but the Court interpreted that the individual assessment of each project still takes place, through the very mechanism by which CSAT designates projects.

Advantages and disadvantages

What it improves

  • It unblocks, through a clear procedure with a fixed deadline (60 days), old hydropower investments, some of which had been waiting for nearly two decades because they overlapped with protected areas.
  • It contributes to Romania’s energy security objectives (increasing renewable generation capacity, reducing dependence on imported fossil resources), explicitly invoked by the Chamber of Deputies and the Ministry of Energy in defence of the law.
  • It keeps a minimum 100-metre buffer zone and leaves untouched the EU Habitats and Birds Directives wherever the protected area overlaps with a Natura 2000 site.

What remains a problem

  • The dissenting opinion points out that, unlike the older exception for mining operations [Art. 56¹(4)-(5)], the new exception requires no compensation (an equivalent area given in exchange) and no individual assessment of the removal’s impact on the protected area.
  • Most nationally significant protected natural areas in Romania overlap, in practice, with “Natura 2000” sites; where this happens, applying the exception remains conditional on full compliance with the Habitats Directive, which can generate confusion and case-by-case disputes.
  • Removing the explicit “case-by-case” wording from the CSAT-project exemption from environmental assessment raises, according to the dissenting opinion, the risk of less transparent application, especially since the Ministry of Environment has no direct representation on CSAT.

Practical advice

  1. If you manage an old hydropower investment located within a nationally significant protected natural area: check whether the investment objective was approved by government decision or state decree before 29 June 2007, and whether works were under way or had started at that date; these are the eligibility conditions for the new 60-day procedure.
  2. If your area overlaps with a Natura 2000 site, don’t assume the exception in Romanian law automatically exempts you from EU environmental assessment; the environmental authority will most likely still require the appropriate assessment mandated by the Habitats Directive.
  3. If you work on a defence, national-security or energy project and want to benefit from the Law no. 292/2018 exemption, check whether your project is designated by a CSAT decision; without that individual designation, the exception does not apply.
  4. Environmental organisations and local communities can separately challenge, before the administrative courts, each specific administrative act by which the Ministry of Environment amends a protected area’s boundaries under the new exception, even though the framework law was upheld by the Constitutional Court.
  5. The law had not yet been promulgated at the time this article was written; only after promulgation and publication will it produce full legal effects, including the possibility of filing the first requests to amend protected-area boundaries.

Frequently asked questions

What did the Constitutional Court decide through Decision no. 735/2026?
It rejected, as unfounded, the President of Romania’s unconstitutionality objection and found that the law allowing the removal, within 60 days, of areas from nationally significant protected natural areas for old hydropower plants, as well as the exemption from environmental impact assessment for national-security projects designated by CSAT, are constitutional.
What is an “unconstitutionality objection” and who raised it?
It is the pre-promulgation constitutional review of a law already adopted by Parliament but not yet promulgated. In this case it was raised by the President of Romania on 11 November 2025, immediately after the Chamber of Deputies adopted the law.
Do the boundaries of any protected natural area change right now, with the publication of the decision?
Not automatically. The Constitutional Court’s decision only confirms that the law is constitutional; the law must still be promulgated and published separately, and each boundary change is then made through an individual administrative act of the Ministry of Environment, at a specific investor’s request.
Does the exception also apply to Natura 2000 sites?
Not directly. The Court expressly held that the new exception [Art. 56¹(8) of Government Emergency Ordinance no. 57/2007] applies only to nationally significant protected natural areas, not to those of Community interest (Natura 2000 sites), which remain fully subject to the EU Habitats and Birds Directives, even though, in practice, many nationally significant areas overlap with Natura 2000 sites.
Why was the decision challenged even by one of the Court’s own judges?
Judge Dacian-Cosmin Dragoș wrote a dissenting opinion, arguing that, in his view, the law breaches both the principle of bicameralism (the Chamber of Deputies’ amendments would have substantially changed the form rejected by the Senate) and the right to a healthy environment, due to the lack of safeguards similar to those for mining operations (compensation, individual impact assessment).
What happens to national-security projects designated by CSAT?
They are exempt from the environmental impact assessment required by Law no. 292/2018, but, according to the Court, they remain subject to an individual analysis carried out by CSAT itself before being included in a decision of that institution.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. For specific situations involving investment projects, protected natural areas or environmental impact assessment procedures, consulting a lawyer specialised in environmental or administrative law is recommended.

Original text of the legal act

The text below is reproduced in Romanian, the official published form.

The full text, as published in the Official Gazette of Romania

Official Gazette of Romania no. 640 of 3 August 2026 32 pages PDF, 205 KB the act starts on page 9

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This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. For specific situations, consult a licensed attorney or tax advisor.