The Ministry of the Environment presents the costs of plane tickets and accuses attempts of “disinformation”. “Amounts presented spectacularly, titles of cancan”
Minister of the Environment, Waters and Forests, Diana Buzoianu / PHOTO: Inquam Photos / George Călin
The Ministry of the Environment declared on Wednesday that in 2025 656,260.11 lei were spent on plane tickets, down by approximately 20% compared to 2024, when the amount was 813,853.77 lei.
In the statement sent, the institution “denounces the misinformation” related to the costs of plane tickets.
“In recent months, articles have repeatedly appeared in the public space that use the same narrative: sums presented spectacularly, headlines and their artificial association with the idea of ”luxury”, “exotic vacations” or “waste of public money”. The information is taken in a chain by several publications, without verification, without official requests for data and without institutional contextualization”, declared the ministry.
“A framework agreement that brings cost reductions”
The ministry led by Diana Buzoianu specified that the new framework agreement has a value 12.3% lower than the previous one.
“So, in reality, we are talking about a framework agreement that brings cost reductions. Moreover, for the first time, clauses regarding the receipt of offers for low-cost flight tickets were also introduced,” the statement added.
The institution explained that the framework agreements of public institutions allow the purchase of tickets only when there are approved official trips, within the allocated budget, and “do not represent sums spent automatically, do not generate implicit payments and do not constitute budgets consumed in advance”.
“Romania is part of the international conventions on climate change, biodiversity, the protection of seas and oceans, migratory species and ecosystems. Participation in international meetings is not optional and is not a discretionary choice of a minister or an institution, but an obligation of the Romanian state assumed by international treaties and conventions,” notes the Ministry of the Environment.
The ministry said that EU membership also “implies constant participation in decision-making processes, working meetings, negotiations and European coordination mechanisms in the field of environmental, climate and sustainability policies, with direct obligations of institutional representation and reporting”.
“All these meetings take place, by rotation, in all UN regions, in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Europe or Latin America. The presentation of this institutional framework as “exotic vacations” is not a minor error, but a deliberate distortion of the administrative reality. The real information regarding the budget execution existed and exists, but was not requested”, concluded the Ministry of the Environment.
