The government adopted a bill amending and supplementing the Water Act, submitted for consideration by the Minister of Environment and Water. Its main objective is to reduce the administrative burden by streamlining permitting procedures and registration regimes.

Given that access to water is essential for ensuring the country’s food security, the new provisions regulate water abstraction from the Danube River and municipal dams, granting broader powers to local authorities – a notification regime is introduced for water abstraction from the river for irrigation purposes, and a simplified regime for water abstraction from municipally owned dams.

The provisions in the current Water Act contain a number of requirements and procedures that complicate the administrative process for issuing permits to water users. The procedures are often lengthy, involve too many documents, and require coordination with various institutions, which leads to delays and hinders the effective management of water resources.

The new provisions eliminate the need for applicants to submit certain documents, instead introducing an ex officio requirement for information from the relevant agencies. Mandatory deadlines are set for institutions to provide their opinions. The rights and responsibilities of mayors regarding the control of water abstraction from municipal water sources are clarified.

With regard to mineral water deposits - which are exclusively state-owned - the bill allows, upon a justified request by the mayor (based on a decision by the municipal council and following an assessment of compliance with legal requirements), for the term of their free management and use by the relevant municipalities to be extended.

With the proposed amendments, water monitoring - in particular the monitoring of the ecological and chemical status of marine waters - is incorporated into the functions of the Executive Environment Agency (EEA), which is legally responsible for establishing and maintaining the national monitoring system. This creates better coordination between the individual monitoring networks and more effective management of information on the state of the waters.

The adopted amendments propose to amend and supplement the Environmental Protection Act, providing for the Executive Environment Agency to issue a price list for the services provided by its laboratories to individuals and legal entities, which is to be updated promptly and easily as needed.