Romania needed almost two decades to declare its integrated waste management systems functional. Even so, it remains the EU member state with the weakest recycling rate—just 12% , stagnant since 2010—according to a country report discussed by the European Commission in June 2025. Of the 31 Integrated Waste Management Systems (CMID in Romanian ) that were supposed to be implemented after 2007, five had to be phased —meaning they could not be completed within the original deadline and had to be