Gov’t wants to ban wood export

Newsroom 13/05/2015 | 17:02

Prime Minister Victor Ponta on Wednesday announced the Government is considering passing next week an emergency ordinance banning the export of unprocessed wood.

According to Agerpres, he said the Government would have passed such piece of legislation on Wednesday, but the Justice Ministry failed to come up with a legal solution for the passage of the ordinance.

“We have delayed the meeting of the government because last evening I asked minister Gavrilescu, the Department for European Affairs and the Justice Ministry to pass an emergency ordinance banning the export of any unprocessed wood, for a definite time. Unfortunately, as far as I understand the Justice Ministry failed to find the solution. (…) That got stuck with you. I want to call on you to please come up with a solution by next week or the Justice Ministry employees will have to start looking for a job, because I understand that we have to meet all our obligations, and all the obligations at a European level incumbent on us do not run contrary to Romania’s interests. You must respect the interest of Romania yourselves,” Ponta said at the beginning of the Government’s meeting on Wednesday.

Late last week, in several localities there were organized protests on deforestation and president Klaus Iohannis decided for the matter to be discussed in the next meeting of the Supreme Council of National Defence.

Staff