USR asks President Iohannis to promulate Law on smells

USR (Save Romania Union) MPs ask President Klaus Iohannis, in an open letter, to promulgate the Law on smells, already adopted by Parliament.

The open letter addressed to the President has been signed by 6,000 citizens, reads a press release of the USR sent to AGERPRES on Tuesday.

USR underscored that the Law on smells, which was an initiative of this party, enjoys the support of several MPs from different parties "as a response to the numerous notifications from citizens regarding the discomfort caused by the smell generated by the waste storage facilities, industrial activities or farms."

Moreover, the USR MPs mentioned that the concerns that were mentioned publicly in the past couple of days by some associations operating in agriculture are unjustified. USR explained the fact that mayors do not have such attributions of control and inspection of the integrated environmental authorizations and that the regulations in the environment protection field issued by the relevant authority for environment protection and inspection and control activities are carried out by the National Environmental Guard and its county offices.

However, USR shows that the local public authorities are already entitled to ban in certain parts of their locality such activities that could generate discomfort and that the Law on smells won't bring anything new in this respect.

USR supports sustainable agriculture, which is aligned to the in-force European and national norms. As long as the farms already observe these norms and hold integrated environment authorizations, the Law on smells will not hamper their activity, since they are already in harmony with the European and national norms, said the USR MPs in their letter to the President.