Activity of the Parliament on December 17–30, 2007

Appointments. Dismissals

Dumitru Godoroja has become member of the Parliament. He participated in parliamentary elections on the lists of the electoral bloc Democratic Moldova on behalf of the Party of Social Democracy.

Deputy Gheorghe Musteata, who has succeeded to the Parliament on the list of the Party of Communists of the Republic of Moldova (PCRM), has quitted the PCRM and joined the Patria-Moldova Party, which was recently created but was not yet registered with the Ministry of Justice. Mustata said that his announced exclusion from the parliamentary faction and party last spring was illegitimate and there were no formal decisions in this respect. According to an open letter to the Parliament head and PCRM chairman, Musteata says that he withdraws from the PCRM because he does not warm the new programme of the party and cannot bear any longer the insupportable atmosphere inside the party faced by those who do not like the present policy and ideological changes. Before succeeding to the Parliament Musteata was first secretary of the PCRM District Committee in Soldanesti, district where the ruling party has won more than 60 percent of the votes.

Legal acts

Law on political parties. The document has been modified compared with the initial version, with key innovations envisaging the reduction of the number of members (from 5,000 down to 4,000); authorisation of dissolution for non-participation in elections; funding from the state budget (0.2 percent) only after the 2009 parliamentary elections. For more details, see the commentary “Legislation on parties: Quo Vadis and how?”.

Law approving the National Development Strategy (Plan) for 2008–2011. The document establishes the following priorities:

The consolidation of the democratic state based on supremacy of the law and respect for human rights;
The settlement of the Transnistrian conflict and reintegration of the country;
The enhanced competitiveness of national economy;
The development of human resources, rise of employment rate and promotion of social inclusion;
The regional development.

The Government is due to work out and to approve an action plan and a system to monitor the execution of the strategy. Although it was earlier stated that the new strategy document will unify the main policy documents, the Parliament did not decide so far to concomitantly abrogate some effective strategies, plans, concepts and programmes.

Laws on ratification of international acts:

The UNESCO International Convention Against Doping in Sport;
The Memorandum of Understanding on Coordinated Development of the Black Sea Beltway;
The European Agreement Concerning the International Carriage of Dangerous Goods by Inland Waterways (ADN);
The convention between the Republic of Moldova and Spain concerning avoidance of double taxation and prevention of fiscal taxation on income and capital tax and the protocol to this convention;
The agreement between Moldovan Government and Liechtenstein Government concerning humanitarian assistance and technical cooperation.

Law on modification of the law concerning disciplinary college and reprimanding of judges. The modified law fits the regulations on creation of the legal inspection and aims to delimit competences between bodies which consider petitions from citizens regarding judiciary ethic.

Law concerning the safeguard tax on sugar imports in Moldova. According to data from the Moldovan Union of Sugar Producers, the special safeguard tax introduced under the Law # 8-XV from 05.02.2004 favoured the sugar industry, particularly the domestic production, which rose by 78.3 percent in 2007 compared with 2003. The productivity increased 2.4-fold in 2007 compared with 2003. The special tax is needed to ensure a reasonable protection of the domestic market against cheap sugar imports, with the term of the technical tax being extended for the fourth year in a row.

Law on modification and completion of legal acts (appointment of SIS as single executor of technical interception of telephone calls and other communications via electronic networks). The Information and Security Service will ensure the necessities of operative and criminal investigative bodies, being expected to “enhance the potential of all legal bodies in combating grave offences with human, technical resources and small funds.”

Decision approving the regulation on use of finances from the fund for subsidising farmers. In 2008, the fund for subsidising farmers will comprise 270 million lei and the currency will be distributed on two basic directions:

141 million lei will be spent to modernise the agriculture and to invest in growing saplings and planting fruit and nut trees, buy equipment for small and medium fruit and vegetable processing, drying and freezing enterprises in rural areas, as well as for packing facilities and fridges, to endow with technical and agricultural equipment and machines and revive the livestock sector;
129 million lei will be allocated to subsidise users of phyto-sanitary products (pesticides) and fertilisers (mineral fertilisers), promote insurance services in agriculture, supply the domestic market with qualitative agro-food products by subsidising farmers while delivering own agricultural production inside the country, etc.

Decision on modification of the annex to the Parliament Decision which approves the national strategy on prevention and combat of corruption. The document is adopted to update the plan on implementation of the strategy. Many amendments envisage the implementation of the GRECO recommendations identified within the 2^nd evaluation cycle and reduction of possible corruption in building sector, border zone, judiciary, etc.

Parliamentary control. Statements

Hearings

Deputy minister of justice has reported the situation of Moldova’s cases at the ECHR and punishment of guilty persons, saying that the Government is in charge with notifying the Prosecutor-General’s Office over these cases and the latter decides on proceedings after a legal analysis of every case. The legislation does not stipulate unconditional responsibility, but the persons who are to blame for the sentencing of Moldova by the European Court of Human Rights will pay the necessary damages, if the law stipulates so.

Director-general of the Building and Territorial Development Agency has explained the order which bans the receiving of the so-called “white-version” (unfinished) constructions. He cited the law on quality of constructions and the regulation on the final reception of buildings. The agency issued this order to stop violations in the building sector and to prevent cardinal re-designing and changes which affect the resistance of buildings. The commission receives the unfinished construction, and neither the State Building Inspection, nor local public authorities and other commissions have access to apartments or blocks, and giving the finished apartments will remedy this situation.

The lawmaker who demanded this information said that the legal arguments were insufficient and asked the Prosecutor-General to verify the order by the Building and Territorial Development Agency which bans the reception of unfinished constructions.

Statements

Speaker Marian Lupu has summed up the three months of work at the end of the autumn-winter session, stating in particular:

The Parliament has adopted 27 decisions and approximately 100 draft laws;
Cooperation with civil society was interesting and productive, a special inter-parliamentary group is being created to work on a development concept of associative sector and prepare a new framework law on functioning of nongovernmental organisations;
The parliamentary diplomacy has developed and deepened, particularly on European dimension;
The Parliament has honoured its commitments towards the Council of Europe;
A distinct chapter envisages the relations with Romania and seeks the intensification of parliamentary dialogue between the two countries, which could substantially reduce the reciprocally aggressive political rhetoric;
The parliamentary control on implementation of laws shall be consolidated, etc.

Our Moldova Alliance (OMA) leader Serafim Urechean has stated at the end of the session that though a number of new legal acts have been adopted in 2005–06 and introduced as great achievements forward democratisation, everybody realised this year the null or negative effects of these pseudo-reforms. Even the few positive results have been annulled by those who initiated them. Urechean noted that:

The enforcement of a new regulation of the Parliament has annulled the free access of citizens to plenary sittings, live broadcasting of sittings;
Supplementary limitations and restrictions have been introduced in the Electoral Code;
The CDPP-PCRM coalition simulates in continuation the reforms and substitutes the true parliamentary partnership for fulfilment of European integration objectives;
The judiciary, human rights, market economy, state based on the rule of law, freedom of the media, autonomy of local authorities have no perspectives to improve until 2009;
The acting leadership of Moldova rejects the European integration of the country because they refuse to prepare and submit an official appeal in this respect, accordingly to an OMA initiative;
The regress in terms of democratic norms and achievements continues at parliamentary level, principles of transparent elaboration of legal acts and examination of rules are violated, the control on legislation, in particular, on Government’s activity is ignored;
Authorities plagiarise the legal initiatives of the opposition in convenient forms;
Starting next session, the OMA faction will block the activity of the Parliament every time when the majority and the parliamentary leadership will breach the regulation.

The chairman of the Christian Democratic People’s Party (CDPP), Iurie Rosca, has stated at the end of the parliamentary session that:

The latest conflicts between Moldova and Romania affect the citizens of Moldova above all and the CDPP is ready to help improving the relations between the two countries on all available ways;
The development direction of Moldova was right in 2007, but paces and quality of political, institutional and economic reforms were quite modest compared with expectations of society;
Following areas raise concern so far: democratic institutions, independence of the judiciary, human rights and freedom of the media;
The identity issue is a conflicting topic and it requires a political non-interference in academic matters;
In order to settle identity-related conflicts, the Parliament shall draft and adopt by consensus a special document capable to stop controversies which had been inherent to the building of the Republic of Moldova as a state.

The faction representing the Democratic Party of Moldova (DPM) considers that the political battle in 2008 will be very difficult and the PCRM could resort to most inadmissible methods, but 2008 will be the last year of governance of a communist party in Europe. This statement was delivered by Oleg Serebrian, deputy chairman of the joint faction of DPM and Social Liberal Party. Serebrian noted that decline trends were observed in all areas in 2007, too, in particular:

The inflation rate exceeded 13 percent;
Moldova is ranked the last place in Europe so far as regards the foreign direct investments per capita;
The settlement of the Transnistrian conflict did not progress;
Relations with Romania have reached the lowest level ever registered, relations with Ukraine have slacked down, relations with Russia did not improve;
Moldova is chronically behind as regards the honouring of commitments from the Moldova-EU Action Plan and Moldova-NATO Individual Action Plan;

Also, Serebrian indicated some encouraging signs observed in 2007, in particular, the victory of democrats at the June 3, 2007 local elections, including the gain in Chisinau; the creation of democratic majorities in most district councils; the launching of important political merger projects on the centre and centre-left segment.

Eugenia Ostapciuc, chairwoman of the PCRM parliamentary faction, stated that Communist lawmakers will focus on wishes of electors. Keeping and developing the social orientation of economic policy, improving the life of population were primordial tasks in 2007. For this reason, all resources have been mobilised, other possibilities have been used to ensure the continuity of this course at maximum. Lawmakers continued to focus on ensuring an efficient political stability in country. In this context, the Parliament adopted some legal acts, in particular, the law on political parties, and modified the Electoral Code. The PCRM faction is very interested to ensure the stability, the democratic development of the country, to improve the work of democratic institutions, optimise social-political forces in strict accordance with legal norms. For these reasons, the PCRM wants the future electoral campaign to be fair and democratic as well, and prevent any falsifications and violations.

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