The former Minister of the Environment Diana Buzoianu said on Tuesday that she followed the statements from the Ministry of the Environment, which she considers “a symbol” of what PSD means in government.
“I have followed the statements from the Ministry of the Environment and I can say that it is practically a symbol of what the PSD in government means. A director who falsifies his work leaves, medical leaves for months so that he does not go to work, who miraculously returns, when the PSD reaches the government and who among the first decisions he makes is to put PSD county councilors, directors, in the subordinates of Romanian Waters. This example is what happens when face”, said Buzoianu in a press conference.
The former minister referred to the return of Doru Cazan to the leadership of Apelor Române and specified that he was initially appointed following a competition. However, she claimed that she did not give him “a blank check” and accused him of later making decisions in favor of people close to the PSD.
“The difference between me and the PSD is that I don’t give a blank check to anyone. I mean, he did well with the theoretical answers, then he made some schemes for the PSD people. After he discovered a damage of 20 million lei in Olt, due to an illegal ballast that had not been checked, Mr. Cazan appointed for another three months exactly the lady director who had not checked. Then I ask you and I think that all Romanians had to ask themselves, why at the moment the inspectors from Jiu who controlled the ballasts from Olt related to the PSD barons, why did these inspectors, after the return of the PSD county councilor to the Jiu directorate, have the cars blocked and they can no longer be used? So, I repeat, inspectors from other counties had to come to Olt to be able to discover the crimes”, said Buzoianu.
“The decision for the ballast radar was 90% drafted”
Regarding the ballast radar, the former minister explained that the operation of the application requires the adoption of a Government decision that establishes the functions of the system and the internal procedures.
According to her, approximately 90% of the draft normative act was drafted during her mandate, in parallel with the development of the application, and the document only needed a few changes after receiving the final version.
“Therefore, the Government decision could not be completed until after the final version of the application was received. The draft decision was 90% written, a few words still needed to be changed and for the new Minister of the Environment to make it transparent. Mrs. Intotero, instead of putting the Government decision, which still needed a few words, into public debate, sent the Control Body to check whether or not a decision of Government to make this application work. Or, this is the kind of question for which he could have received an answer from a civil servant in five minutes,” said Diana Buzoianu.
Aceasts also disputed Natalia Intotero’s claim that Romsilva’s reorganization would be blocked. She specified that the decision was challenged in court by trade unionists, but the Ministry of the Environment won in the first instance the process regarding the suspension of the normative act.
The file is under appeal, and the next term at the High Court of Cassation and Justice is scheduled for January 2027.
“I learn from the press conference at the Ministry of the Environment that the reorganization of Romsilva is, in the words of Mrs. Intotero, blocked. Well, you see, there are two options here. Either A, Mrs. Intotero has only been here for a short time and has not yet had time to find out the information from the ministry, and she does not know that the decision to reorganize Romsilva has, indeed, been challenged in court by unionists who are angry that they will lose their jobs some bosses who transformed from this institution an estate per individual. But we have already won a first trial against the decision regarding the reorganization. There is also a second option, the Ministry of the Environment has given a deadline to the ICCJ in January 2027. The second option is that if Mrs. Intotero is so sure that this decision is blocked, she may know what the ICCJ will decide in January 2027 all the question whether Lia called or not”, she continued.
The former minister added that the reorganization was based on the Romsilva audit and that the version with 19 forestry departments was among the first three scenarios identified by specialists.
“We applied these formulas when we reorganized Romsilva. In fact, even in the final audit report it is very clear that the scenario of the 19 forestry departments that we proposed is in the top three scenarios, identified even by the auditors who completed the audit,” said Buzoianu
Allegations regarding purchases from ANM
Regarding the National Meteorological Administration, Diana Buzoianu claimed that she sent an inspection to the institution in July, and the director of ANM started an audit in August, after the checks were launched.
She said a whistleblower had flagged irregularities as far back as November 2025 and resumed allegations of some direct purchases.
“I am glad for Mrs. Mateescu that she has a platform from the Ministry of the Environment to cover the luxury bras bought and the direct purchases made with dedication to two companies that had a completely and completely different object of activity, but the truth must still be told. In July, we sent an inspection to the ANM. In August, seeing that Mrs. Mateescu had no way to hide the irregularities that were checked, this audit began,” said the former minister.
Buzoianu also responded to criticism regarding the purchase of an approximately four million euro plane for forest monitoring. She stated that the tender was launched in April 2025, before she reached the leadership of the ministry, and registrations ended in May of the same year. Only one company would have signed up for the procedure.
“USR wants four million euro planes. No, USR doesn’t want four million euro planes. I hear that I would have launched an auction. How complicated would it be for anyone who wants to be informed on a subject to check a simple website, where all public auctions are placed? The public auction for the airplane was launched not while I was in the ministry, but a few months before I came to the ministry, that is, in April 2025. The registration for this auction was made before I arrived at the ministry, until May 2025. Only one company signed up for this auction, so there weren’t many companies competing with each other. And this auction, if you want, may or may not happen,” she said.
The plane would carry the sensors needed to scan forests and identify illegal logging. Without the equipment to be mounted on, the sensors could not be used in the capacity for which they were purchased, explained Buzoianu.
“If we don’t have equipment to put this sensor on, we won’t be able to complete this basic function of those sensors, we won’t be able to have forests scanned. And my question is, who do you think is happy today that this sensor, right now, is not going to be able to be used anywhere? I think the only people who are very, very happy are the people who were illegally cutting down the forests,” she said.
The former minister also claimed that the 20 million lei required would not come from the state budget, but from a fund administered by Romsilva.
“How difficult it was to even check the website of the Ministry of the Environment, that an emergency ordinance is put up for public debate from March 2026 that clarifies that the money for this plane will be taken from a fund managed by Romsilva, in which the money was collected for years because they did not use that money. So it was not even about the money from the national budget, and it was not even about some money that could have been used for something else,” he declared Buzoianu.
Sibiu-Pitesti, Pitesti Hospital, Danube Delta and SUMAL 3.0
Diana Buzoianu stated that several projects presented by the current leadership of the Ministry of the Environment as unblocked were already at an advanced stage at the time of her departure: “It is always nice to see, leaving the ministry, how the work left at 98% is “miraculously” unblocked by those who came after. We left an ongoing procedure that was actually following its course. I’m glad that Mrs. Intotero decided not to block and called it that she unblocked the situation altogether.”
For the Pitesti Hospital, Buzoianu stated that on September 16, he had a meeting with the public administrator of the city, Gelu Tofan, who submitted the necessary additional documents, and the order had already been introduced in the approval circuit.
“The order was put on track, and today Mrs. Intotero can boast that she signed it, that she solved it, although a few days ago she probably had no idea about this subject. I’m always happy to see completed projects even with sensational stories”, declared Diana Buzoianu.
Regarding the management plan of the Danube Delta, she disputed the statement that the document had not been sent for approval and claimed that she had already obtained almost all the approvals before Natalia Intotero came to the ministry.
The former minister also stated that the decision regarding SUMAL 3.0 was signed and sent for approval, and some of the approvals have already been obtained. The observations of the Ministry of Justice would have concerned the fact that an interim government cannot adopt new public policies.
The works at Paltinu and the funds for dams and dykes
Regarding the Paltinu dam, the USR deputy rejected the claims that no work had been done. She claimed that in December 2025 and early 2026, interventions took place at the clean water basin and the connecting pipe.
“In June 2026, as a result of these emergency intervention works, it was possible to overcome a flood. So, it is a lie that no works were done. Work was done on the basin and the respective works withstood a flood in June 2026. Moreover, the Government’s decision was approved regarding the technical-economic indicators, 115 million lei, so that the work could be done completely, not just a few works done in an emergency regime. Also, 32 million lei were allocated by Government decision for the provision of alternative water sources in Prahova county”, explained Buzoianu.
Regarding the lost European funds for dams, dykes and polders, the former minister claimed that she had warned about the situation since the first weeks of her mandate: “The only project that managed to be completed, the one in Oradea, succeeded because the representatives of ABA Crișuri asked to manage the project themselves. That is, the only place where a project was completed was precisely the place where the PSD leadership, appointed by the PSD for Romanian Waters, was no longer involved of that project. Of course, I would have liked all the counties to be covered, but for that PSD should not appoint people in 2021, in 2022, in 2023 who, in fact, block the projects at dams and dykes”.
