The Agency for Inspection and Restoration of Monuments has published an activity report, following numerous complaints about illegal demolitions of historical monument buildings. The Ministry of Culture announced on Tuesday, 25 July, that it had referred the matter to the Prosecutor General’s Office (PG) and requested the creation of an investigation group specialising in “crimes aimed at the destruction of historical monuments”.

According to the institution, since 2022, dozens of reports of crimes have been drawn up and sent to the Agency for Technical Supervision and Police. Numerous cases of demolition of monuments and construction of new buildings have been recorded, most of which relate to the period before the new Ministry of Culture was established. Thus, “on the basis of the acts of finding these serious legislative violations, applications were sent to the General Prosecutor’s Office”.

“Since the establishment of the new Ministry of Culture in 2021, the preservation of cultural heritage has become one of the most important priorities of activity.

The Ministry of Culture amended the Law on the Protection of Monuments, establishing clear provisions for protected areas, changed the composition of the National Council of Historical Monuments, and the work of the Agency for Inspection and Restoration of Monuments was restarted (…).

(…) The report of the Agency for Inspection and Restoration of Monuments provides a list of the acts drawn up for the years 2022 and 2023, including addresses to the Prosecutor’s Office,” the ministry’s press release said.

The agency also found that no appeals were filed for the demolition of monuments in 2018-2021.

Thus, based on the report of the Agency for Inspection and Restoration of Monuments, the Ministry of Culture has appealed to the interim Prosecutor General, Ion Munteanu, with “the request to take control of the situation, with the instrumentation of the files on the demolition of monuments”.

“The destruction of heritage, in most cases, is of an organised nature, actions committed by criminal groups, whose aim is the demolition of monuments and the subsequent construction of multi-storey buildings.

These illegal activities include forgery of documents, projects deviating from building regulations, issuing illegal building permits, attempts to construct new buildings on the site of destroyed monuments under the pretext of reconstruction,” the statement added.

The Ministry of Culture is asking the Prosecutor General’s Office to set up a specialised investigation group to investigate these actions. At the same time, the Ministry of Culture considers it necessary to “increase the responsibility for the destruction of monuments by making appropriate amendments to the Criminal and Contravention Code”.