Years of delays and frozen EU funds. A water quality monitoring project, just 6% completed by deadline

Laura Popa

Reporter

190 Million Lei and an Integrated Data Platform for Water Quality

In November 2021, the Ministry of the Environment announced that, in partnership with the Ministry of Health and the National Administration of Romanian Waters (Apele Române), it was implementing the project titled "Development of a National Laboratory for Improving Monitoring of Substances Discharged into Waters and of Drinking Water Quality."

"This project aims to equip the existing laboratories under the ownership of the Ministry of Health and the National Administration of Romanian Waters with new equipment so they can be connected to a single integrated platform with data on the quality of wastewater, surface water, and drinking water. This platform will enable full operationalization of a national virtual laboratory through the integration of all data from local and regional data collection platforms managed by the Ministry of the Environment, Ministry of Health, and Romanian Waters," according to a statement provided by the environmental institution to PressOne.

Valued at 190 million lei, the project was to be funded 85% through EU cohesion policy funds for the 2014–2020 financial cycle via the Large Infrastructure Operational Program (POIM). The remaining 15% (about 29 million lei) was to come from the budgets of the two ministries involved.

The project had four major specific objectives:

The project was scheduled to be completed by December 2023, a deadline by which all projects funded under the 2014–2020 EU financial framework were also supposed to be fully implemented.

By the time the project was supposed to be fully operational, it was only 6% complete

What was the status in December 2023?

„Expenditures made in Phase I of the project amounted to 12,429,546 lei, representing 6.5044%,” according to a response from the Ministry of the Environment provided at the request of PressOne.

The reasons behind the state’s inability to complete the project on time were excessive bureaucracy and the complexity of the initiative, ministry representatives explained:

„Considering the complexity and specificity of the project’s activities, correlated with socio-economic conditions and the very long deadlines required for obtaining approvals/authorizations and conducting procurement procedures, a request was made to phase the project into the 2021–2027 funding cycle,” the ministry said in its response to the newsroom.

As previously reported by PressOne, projects funded during the 2014–2020 period had to be finalized by December 2023. Those that remained incomplete and met certain criteria could be phased, meaning transferred into a new funding period, which is what happened with this project.

Why the Project Was Phased

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According to the Ministry of the Environment, the funding contract for the project was signed in October 2021. After that, it took more than half a year to adopt a Government Decision approving the necessary investments, as required by law.

„The project's general procurement plan and the breakdown plan for the three years of implementation, mandatory preliminary steps to launch public procurement procedures under the funding contract, could not be approved by the Ministry of Public Finance due to the lack of a Government Decision. Such a decision is required and mandatory under Article 108 of the Romanian Constitution (republished), and Article 42, paragraph (1), letter a) of Law no. 500/2002 on public finances (with subsequent amendments and additions), which mandates a Government Decision for all procurement considered major investments—specifically, investments exceeding 40 million lei, as is the case here,” ministry representatives explained in their response to PressOne.

At the time the project was supposed to be completed, most of the objectives had not even reached 50% fulfillment. For example, out of the 99 existing laboratories that were supposed to be equipped with new technology, only 12 had received equipment. That means just over 12% of this objective was achieved.

Another key objective was the training of personnel who would operate the new equipment. Out of 226 targeted individuals, only 5 had received training—which represents just 2.2% of the total.

Regarding the analysis methodology and new analysis parameters, only 3 out of 13 planned data analysis methodologies were implemented by December 2023. And while the target number of new parameters/substances for analysis was 46, only 7 had been implemented by that time.

„The entire amount was authorized as eligible expenditure, of which 85% was non-refundable EU funding (10,565,114.64 lei) and 15% co-financed from national sources (1,864,432 lei),” the Ministry of the Environment told PressOne.

According to the same response, all unspent funds from Phase I were transferred to Phase II of the project.

Thus, although 190 million lei were initially allocated for the first phase and just over 12 million were used, the project was granted a new funding package of over 178 million lei in Phase II to avoid losing the already initiated investment. This money could have been allocated to new projects had it been used during the originally defined implementation period.

Double the Implementation Time

After a new process of drafting, technical and financial evaluation, and contracting, Phase II of the project started in October 2024, with a new implementation deadline of March 2027. This means the project now requires twice the implementation period compared to the initial plan.

„According to the latest monitoring report from July 2025, procurement contracts worth approximately 120,473,881.26 lei have been signed, representing 67.43% of the total budget for Phase II. Of this, approximately 70,351,761.51 lei have been paid by the beneficiary, representing about 39.38% of the total for Phase II,” the Ministry stated in its response to PressOne.

Out of the 99 laboratories that are to be equipped with new gear, 32 belong to the National Administration of Romanian Waters (ANAR) and 67 to the Ministry of Health, which are project partners alongside the Ministry of the Environment.

According to the environmental authority: „The laboratory equipment has been purchased, installed, and put into operation in all 32 laboratories belonging to ANAR,” and those under the Ministry of Health „are equipped and operational at 80% completion.”

In addition, 136 individuals have been trained in the 32 laboratories equipped under ANAR. However, the response does not include information on the training of personnel who will operate the new equipment in the laboratories under the Ministry of Health.

The slowest progress is being made on the integrated data collection platform—for both national and local levels—as well as the reporting system to European institutions.

Once completed, the project is expected to contribute to the production of accurate data necessary for EU-level reporting, as required by several European directives concerning water quality.

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