WRITTEN QUESTION E-2448/02 by Erik Meijer (GUE/NGL) to the Commission. Plans for a major mining project in Romanian Transylvania to extract gold using toxic cyanide.
Date: 2002-08-29
Institutions: European Parliament, Provisional data
Subjects: Romania, environmental protection, industrial pollution, industrial project, metal pollution, mining extraction

C 33 E/6

Official Journal of the European Union

EN

6.2.2004

(2004/C 33 E/006)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-2448/02

by Erik Meijer (GUE/NGL) to the Commission

(29 August 2002)

Subject: Plans for a major mining project in Romanian Transylvania to extract gold using toxic cyanide

1.
Does the Commission recall that early in 2000 a cyanide pond built by the Australian mining
company Esmeralda to extract gold from ore obtained from an open-cast mine near the town of Baia Mare
in the northwest of Romania overflowed, causing toxic river water to stream through Romania, Hungary
and Serbia via the Tisza river and river system killing huge numbers of fish?

2.
Is the Commission aware that the Canadian mining company Gabriel Resources, in cooperation with
the state-owned mining company Minvest as part of the Eurogold joint venture, is looking for investors for
a large-scale mining project in the valley near Rosia Montana (known as Verespatak before 1918) to the
east of Cimpeni and Abrud in the Romanian ‘judetul’ or province of Alba and the flood plain of the Mures/
Maros river, in which a 600 hectare cyanide pond is being built without a concrete floor and an area of
1600 hectares of age-old mountain villages is being evacuated, and that work on the project has now
started?

Is the Commission also aware that Gabriel Resources has since bought up the local copper mine with
increase in local

3.
a view to closing it and taking over the skilled workers and that no significant
employment can therefore be expected?

4.
Does the Commission consider it acceptable for the use of a dangerous and out-dated method of
gold mining, now used only in the Third World, to make large areas downstream in future Member States
of the EU uninhabitable?

Source: De Volkskrant, 13 July 2002 and 17 July 2002.

(2004/C 33 E/007)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-2449/02

by Erik Meijer (GUE/NGL) to the Commission

(29 August 2002)

Subject: Contacts with the World Bank, the Romanian government and the Alburnus Maior action group

to prevent a toxic disaster area in Transylvania

1. What does the Commission know about World Bank involvement in the Eurogold project near the
Romanian village of Rosia Montana, which is being used by the company with the passive agreement of
the World Bank as an argument to attract investors, in that the firm claims that the World Bank itself is in
favour of a large goldmine in the area whereas the World Bank says that the project is still at the feasibility
study stage?

2.
Does the Commission not share my view that the necessary strengthening of the Romanian economy
will not be helped by projects based on crude short-term over-exploitation resulting in virtually irreparable
damage to neighbouring countries, the environment and future generations?

3.
Is the Commission prepared to advise the Romanian government and the World Bank strongly
against going ahead with this project, by advocating that any further extraction of gold in the area should
not be done by opencast mining and by ensuring that no source of lethal toxicity remains after mining has
ceased?

Is the Commission prepared to establish contacts with the Alburnus Maior action group set up in
4.
connection with this project and take other measures to prevent a situation in which, after 15 years
mining, a toxic area is left and disaster areas similar to Chernobyl may arise in the surrounding area in the
future?

Source: De Volkskrant, 13 July 2002 and 17 July 2002.