Scandal of proportions at Casa Verde: justice annuls regulations imposed by AFM

The Administration of the Environmental Fund (AFM) has recently registered several judicial failures, after magistrates invalidated regulations considered incompatible with European legislation, regulations with an impact on the implementation of the Casa Verde Photovoltaice program. The most recent decision, pronounced by the Bucharest Court of Appeal on April 15, 2025, partially annulled Order 2045/2024 issued by the Ministry of Environment. The court accepted the request of Trustee Capital Management IFN (a non-banking financial institution based in Estonia) and was pronounced in the context in which the AFM had allegedly rejected guarantees issued by authorized European entities, while accepting other guarantees with uncertain legal status or coming from controversial entities, according to court documents and industry sources. Therefore, the magistrates of the Bucharest Court of Appeal oblige, by the same decision, the Ministry of Environment, Waters and Forests to harmonize the provisions of the normative act - Order 2045/2024 (in whose annex the financing guide for the Casa Verde Photovoltaice program is approved) - with the community provisions on the free movement of services in the European Union.

This decision comes after three other decisions favorable to the same Estonian financial institution: the suspension on December 13, 2024 of an address issued by the NBR used as a basis for the exclusion of Trustee guarantees, the suspension on December 23, 2024 of an article considered discriminatory in Order 2045 and the full suspension on March 12, 2025 of article 15 of the same order. In all cases, the courts concluded that the AFM applied restrictive and unjustified practices that prevented the participation of legitimate economic operators in the Casa Verde Photovoltaice program.

In addition to these decisions obtained in court by lawyer Radu Negru, representative of Trustee Capital and some plumbers, ecologist Octavian Floruţa filed criminal complaints with the DNA, DIICOT and the Court of Auditors, requesting an investigation into the networks of interests existing within the Environmental Fund Administration. The plaintiff in these criminal complaints claims that the respective networks defrauded the AFM budget with amounts amounting to several billion lei.

• Laurentiu Neculaescu, former head of AFM, involved in defrauding public money?

At the center of the alleged fraudulent system is Laurenţiu Adrian Neculaescu, former AFM president, currently PSD deputy. According to information that has reached the DNA and DIICOT, as AFM president, Neculaescu would have directed approximately 10 billion lei through environmental programs from the total budget of 13 billion to Dâmboviţa county, to support his electoral campaign last year. Sources involved in the Casa Verde Fotovoltaice program told the newspaper BURSA that Neculaescu publicly stated, in a video from last year's campaign - a video that he later deleted - the following: "I brought the entire AFM budget to Dâmboviţa and I will bring even more when I am a deputy. No other county has received as much money as I brought here."

According to the cited sources, the preferential, subjective targeting of these funds ensured Laurenţiu Neculaescu's electoral victory, with Dâmboviţa county coming in first place in the country in terms of votes for the PSD, surpassing even Buzău county, the stronghold of the party leader, Marcel Ciolacu.

Asked by the BURSA newspaper about the accusations against him, Laurenţiu Neculaescu told us: "I am accused by the representatives of an IFN that, based on a point of view received from the National Bank of Romania, I rejected from the procedure, because at that time it did not have the authorization or accreditations necessary to operate in the market as a guarantor. Based on that address from the NBR, the elimination of that IFN was ordered, after which an entire process began. Regarding the statement that I would have given 10 billion lei to Dâmboviţa, given that the entire Casa Verde Fotovoltaice program had a total national funding of 2 billion lei, I have nothing more to comment on. It is clear that the information in question is erroneous, and the people who make such statements are paid to throw completely wrong data into the public space."

We mention that, from the checks carried out, the amount of 10 billion lei allocated mainly to Dâmboviţa county did not emerge. For example, for the 2024 edition of the Photovoltaic Green House, financed at the national level with 2 billion lei, in the session held last year, before Mr. Neculaescu arrived in Parliament, the South-Muntenia region benefited from a total financing of 321 million lei, but we are talking about seven counties: Argeş, Dâmboviţa, Călăraşi, Giurgiu, Ialomiţa, Prahova and Teleorman. Moreover, a year earlier, in 2023, the total budget for the same seven counties was 280.9 million lei, while for the period 2021-2022 it was much lower, if we take into account that the total budget allocated to the program at the national level did not exceed 650 million lei in 2022.

We also point out that, on April 24, 2025, the Government approved the AFM budget for this year, a budget that exceeds the amount of 16.42 billion lei, funds that will be used to finance commitments from previous sessions, the continuation of already known programs, as well as to launch new environmental and energy efficiency initiatives. Of this budget, only 1.5 billion lei are allocated at the national level for the photovoltaic panel program.

However, a former director of the AFM told us: "Neculaescu emptied the accounts for his campaign. Now cash counter-guarantees are being requested to cover the lack of liquidity."

Regarding these guarantees, the cited sources also state that, after Neculaescu's departure from AFM, the continuation of the abusive actions would be Adrian Corbu, current vice president of the public institution, one of the countless nephews of the Pandele-Firea couple. Corbu would have maintained the blockage of the photovoltaic program and would have continued to request installers to submit counter-guarantees of 200,000 lei. One of these installers told the BURSA newspaper: "Whoever does not pay, is eliminated, no matter how good his documents are".

• Fictitious guarantees and commissions for consultants in order to recover the amounts owed by AFM?

Moreover, in order to protect the entire mechanism that would have been put in place during Neculaescu's leadership, Florin Bănică, considered the "trusted man" of Neculaescu and the president of the Dâmboviţa County Council, was appointed to head AFM, the same sources claim. They claim that Bănică would have accepted fictitious guarantees from entities such as Marathon EPR, Financiar Recicling and Eco Synergy, guarantees whose total value would exceed 100 million euros and which would benefit the political protectors of the system.

Regarding the new president of the AFM, Laurenţiu Neculaescu told us: "Fiction! There is no such thing. There is no connection between me and the appointment of the current president of the AFM".

The sources cited at the beginning of this article claim that the entire state of affairs above would not have been possible without the involvement of the evaluation committee within the AFM, a committee that has nine members and which, according to the cited sources, would have implemented an informal "consultancy" system, through which rejected files could be accepted in exchange for commissions. "I was unofficially told that if I pay 5,000 euros in consultancy, my file will be reconsidered favorably," one of the installers who applied to the Casa Verde Fotovoltaice program told us, under the protection of the source protection.

If the requested amounts were not paid, the recycling companies were subjected to an extensive verification process by the public institution. One of the local employees of the AFM told us that one of the members of the commission "told us directly that if we did not follow the instructions from above, we would be fired".

The former president of the AFM, Laurenţiu Neculaescu, told us: "The evaluation commission could not do any of the things stated, because most of the procedure is digitalized. We are talking about an IT application managed by Microsoft. Basically, to influence access to the program, you would have to involve those from Microsoft, which demonstrates that the people who criticize the AFM's activity are based on fabrications".

The cited sources claim that blocking access to the Casa Verde program would have left over 30,000 households without the promised systems. Under these conditions, many beneficiaries would have purchased their equipment from their own funds, contracting bank loans that they pay in parallel with their energy bills. Moreover, approximately 300 installers were excluded from the program because they used guarantees issued by financial institutions that had authorized activity in other European countries and not in Romania, but not accepted by the AFM based on the order issued by Minister Fechet, an order that was annulled by the Bucharest Court of Appeal regarding the requested financial guarantees.

Regarding the guarantees requested, we point out that on November 14, 2024, the AFM issued a press release stating: "In order to reduce the risks related to the validity of the guarantees submitted by installers under the program, the AFM carried out strict checks on bank guarantees and guarantee instruments provided by non-banking financial institutions (NFIs). These measures were necessary to ensure the compliance of the guarantees with the provisions of the Financing Guide and the national legislation in force, so that the financing process can proceed without interruption and protect the public funds intended for this program. Following these checks, the AFM found that certain companies do not meet the necessary conditions to issue letters of guarantee in accordance with the requirements of the Financing Guide. These companies either do not operate on the territory of Romania, or are registered in the Register of the National Bank of Romania in the "Pawnshops" section. Thus, following the checks carried out both at the NBR and ASF levels, the AFM requested installers who submitted non-compliant guarantees to submit new guarantees compliant with national legislation within 15 days in order to participate in the 2024 financing session".

There are even companies that are facing financial difficulties, because of AFM officials. A plumber from Cluj County told us: "AFM owes me 1.2 million euros for work carried out 3 years ago. I have 23 employees whom I can no longer pay. When I asked for payment for the work carried out, I was told by a person from the AFM that, if I pay a company the amount of 50,000 euros in the form of consultancy, I will receive the amounts in full, immediately. I consider this a form of blackmail. I refused the offer and, immediately, the husband of the person who told me to use a consulting firm sent me a check and filed a complaint with SICE (Economic Crime Investigation Service), falsifying my minutes that were the basis for the notifications".

The cited sources also show that the AFM would have introduced clearly abusive clauses in the contracts with the installers that stipulate that any legal action automatically leads to the termination of the contract and inclusion on the blacklist in the future. This provision would flagrantly violate the constitutional right of access to justice and Law 554/2004 on administrative litigation, keeping the installers in a permanent state of institutional blackmail, the same sources specify.

• Mircea Fechet: "We are waiting for the reasoned decision of the Bucharest Court of Appeal"

Critics of the entire existing system at the AFM claim that this would not have been possible without the protection provided to the respective network by Mircea Fechet, the Minister of the Environment, Waters and Forests. The cited sources state that Minister Fechet was informed last year about all these dysfunctions, but did not take any action. Moreover, he signed Order 2045/2024 which was partially annulled by the Bucharest Court of Appeal. Sources within the Ministry of Environment, Waters and Forests told us that Mr. Fechet ignored the reports received regarding the unbalanced distribution of funds and the acceptance of fictitious guarantees.

Asked about this situation, Minister Mircea Fechet told us: "Regarding the decision of the Bucharest Court of Appeal of April 15, 2025, we are waiting for it to be sent to us with the related motivation to see what we need to do next and what we should modify in the respective order. In this procedure, we will also consult with the National Bank because, from what I understand from you, the decision refers to guarantees granted by financial institutions headquartered in another European state and not in Romania. Regarding the notifications that were sent to me, I would like to clarify that I receive notifications every day regarding all the activities carried out by the Ministry and its subordinate institutions and, if they were sent to me, they are probably being worked on, and, if measures have not been taken, it is likely that the situations described in them have not been confirmed following the checks carried out."

Moreover, Minister Fechet asked us ten days ago to send him a concrete explanation of what this is about, but he did not respond, by the time the edition was closed, to the information we sent him.

From the above, it seems that the AFM is an institution captured by an informal network, with political ramifications, which would have diverted public environmental funds for personal or electoral purposes. The BURSA newspaper does not say that this is the case, but notes that we have decisions by some courts that confirm administrative abuses, but neither the AFM nor the Ministry of Environment, Waters and Forests seem to comply with the measures ordered by the magistrates. Under these conditions, perhaps a thorough control by the Court of Auditors on the aspects reported in this article would be necessary - a control also requested by the ecologist Octavian Floruţa. If the above information is confirmed by the audit of the Court of Accounts, reforming the AFM and holding those involved accountable will be essential for restoring public trust and the proper functioning of environmental programs.