‘Only a Handful of Environmental Organisations Still Dare Challenge Corporate Projects in Court’
By CIVICUS
Jul 9 2025 (IPS)
CIVICUS speaks to Cristinel Buzatu, regional legal advisor for Central and Eastern Europe at Greenpeace, about how Romania’s state gas company is weaponising the courts to silence environmental opposition.
Cristinel Buzatu
What’s the Neptun Deep project and why is Greenpeace challenging it?
The Neptun Deep project is the largest proposed fossil gas drilling project in the European Union (EU), and we’re fighting it on multiple fronts. Operated by Romgaz Black Sea Limited Nassau SRL and OMV Petrom SA in the Romanian Black Sea, this massive drilling operation threatens biodiversity, accelerates climate change and extreme weather and locks Romania and the EU into an outdated and harmful fossil fuel system.
Our legal challenge targets the project’s environmental permit. We asked the Bucharest Tribunal to suspend it, arguing the Constanța Environmental Protection Agency had approved it in breach of environmental law. The agency’s evaluation was superficial at best, relying on outdated data on the project’s climate impacts and greenhouse gas emissions. Crucially, they ignored its impacts on biodiversity and water bodies, failed to consider risks from potential military conflicts and bypassed meaningful public consultation. Key documents such as ecotoxicity tests and archaeological diagnostic reports were kept hidden from public scrutiny.
When the court rejected our application, it hit us with a massive bill of 150,000 lei (approx. US$34,550) in legal costs to each company. They had demanded even more.
How did Romgaz turn legal costs into a weapon?
Romgaz claimed we failed to pay those costs and were therefore insolvent, which is grounds for dissolving an organisation under Romanian law. They alleged we had no assets or bank accounts and were using several legal entities to avoid responsibility. But the truth is we’ve never received a formal payment notice. When we actively requested one, none came.
Yet Romgaz pressed ahead, filing for our dissolution while launching a media smear campaign. We prepared our defence, confident the facts would vindicate us, as Romgaz’s claims were demonstrably false. But we never got our day in court. Just hours before the first hearing, Romgaz abruptly withdrew the case. Even then, it publicly reaffirmed its accusations and vowed to try again. The strategy was clear: inflict maximum reputational damage while denying us any opportunity to defend ourselves.
Is this part of a broader attack on environmental groups?
Absolutely. This case exemplifies a troubling trend targeting civil society in Romania, particularly environmental groups that dare to use the courts. The playbook is simple: companies that win cases demand excessive legal costs. When organisations can’t pay, the companies pursue their dissolution on insolvency grounds.
We’ve seen this weapon deployed repeatedly. Take Militia Spirituala, a local organisation that was dissolved at the request of a real estate developer. The same developer also tried to shut down Salvati Bucurestiul over unpaid legal fees, although the organisation survived by paying up. Now that developer is suing several organisations for damages totalling a million euros.
The chilling effect is undeniable. While we lack exact figures on litigation rates, the reality speaks for itself: only a handful of organisations still dare to challenge corporate projects in court. Most have been scared off by the legal and financial risks. This amounts to a serious restriction on access to justice, and we urgently need to find ways to reverse this trend.
How did civil society fight back against Romgaz?
The response was immediate and powerful. Civil society recognised the Romgaz case for what it was: a textbook SLAPP – a strategic litigation against public participation. Within just 24 hours, over 25,000 people signed a petition condemning the attempt to silence us.
But the attack’s roots went deeper than one company’s aggression: it was a coordinated effort made from the highest levels of government. On 20 March, the Ministry of Energy held up the Energy Transfer lawsuit in the USA against three Greenpeace organisations as a model to emulate, explicitly encouraging national energy firms to launch similar legal assaults on environmental groups that challenge their projects. The message was unmistakable: the state stands with corporations against civil society.
This provoked unprecedented unity. Over 110 civil society organisations from diverse fields signed an open letter demanding the minister’s dismissal. Yet even this solidarity wasn’t enough to stop the attacks. In May, the minister openly welcomed Romgaz’s attempt to dissolve us, repeating baseless claims about our finances and structure – the same lies peddled in court.
Still, something remarkable has happened. Many people who have never supported us before reached out, saying that while they might not always agree with our campaigns, they recognised this legal action as pure intimidation. That support gives us strength to carry on, defend civic space and resist corporate capture of our democracy.
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