Activity of the President on February 1–15, 2008

Decrees

Moldovan president has modified the structure of his Apparatus, creating the post of advisor for foreign policy and European integration. Tudor Vasilica, section chief in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and European Integration, was appointed to the new office. (Previously, Vasilica has served in the diplomatic service).

The chief of state has awarded the Honour Order to journalist Rita Tvic, director-general of the “Novosti-Moldova” News Agency.

Sittings. Decisions. Statements

Implementation of policy documents

A sitting on implementation of national programmes and strategies has studied the implementation of the Governing Programme “Modernisation of Country — Welfare of People”, National Programme “Moldovan Village”, gasification programme, EGPRSP, national sustained agro-industrial development programme, a number of sectoral programmes. Summing up the presented reports, the Moldovan president sought the mobilisation of efforts to execute all ongoing national strategies, noting that ongoing programmes will continue in 2008. Vladimir Voronin stressed the importance of:

A rigorous coordination of budget expenses with strategies and plans in budgetary exercise, so that to ensure funds for strategic actions, otherwise they are not implemented;
Intensification of coordination and efficient use of foreign financial assistance in order to enhance the investment attractiveness, stimulate the distribution of investments and business activity in rural areas;
Improvement and correlation of the existing labour remuneration system in order to prevent big salary differences from a sector to another;
Continued consolidation of farm land by extending agricultural cooperatives and building technological machine stations (TMS);
Opening of branches of associations of producers and processors of ecological agro-industrial products;
Modernisation and opening of new modern enterprises to process agricultural production in rural areas;
Building of a competitive economy: domestic goods shall be competitive on domestic and foreign markets, correspond to European standards;
Continued gasification of localities, accelerated adoption of decisions on gasification works inside localities;
Ensuring the energy security of the country, development of internal energy resources, etc.

Execution of Moldova-E.U. Action Plan

A sitting convoked by Moldovan president has studied the implementation of the Action Plan in the light of latest developments in the dialogue with the European Commission. According to a brief press release, future concrete actions in the fields of democratisation, freedom of the media and human rights, business climate and anti-corruption fight have been planned.

Criminal penalty policy

The chief of state has called for the examination of the opportunity to revise the Penal Code in terms of discrimination and humanisation of the state punitive policy. Vladimir Voronin noted that starting 2001 the number of inmates has decreased by more than 2,000 persons, and another approximately 500 persons will be released after the recent amendments to the Penal Code. At the same time, there were 7,895 inmates in prisons or 230 persons per 100,000 residents, which is 2–3-fold more than in West European countries, and related statistics of East European countries, new or future E.U. member states disfavour Moldova. The president raised concern and perplexity over exaggerated detention for economic and patrimonial offences, reiterating the need of a multilateral and urgent examination of this issue on basis of European legislation and practice. The Ministry of Justice, the Prosecutor-General’s Office jointly with national and European experts and the Supreme Council of Magistracy will objectively revise the criminal norms with the view to update and adjust them to European standards, and the set of recommendations will be delivered to the Parliament by September 1, 2008.

Note of ADEPT: Moldova’s president asked the Parliament on January 25, 2006 to create a working group for a multilateral examination of policy, legislation and punitive practice with the purpose to improve the situation in the area. It was noted then that the existing legislation does not stipulate a reasonable, coherent and efficient penalty system, and therefore, citizens, public opinion do not often understand the punitive policy of state bodies and do not trust them. Voronin sought then stricter sanctions, particularly for very grave and dangerous crimes, violation of ecological legislation, travel rules, anti-fire security norms, sanitary norms, etc.

Situation in penitentiaries

The situation in prisons was described as unsatisfactory at the sitting. Moldovan president called for efficient actions to improve the detention conditions, rebuild cells accordingly to international norms. In particular, the sitting focussed on the Penitentiary # 13 in Chisinau, which does not respect the norms on protection of inmates. The president asked competent bodies to consider possibilities to evacuate the prison concerned from the Chisinau downtown into another building outside of the Chisinau municipality, with an offer of a Dutch company being described as interesting.

Optimisation of social assistance system

A sitting chaired by chief of state has examined the implementation of a previous initiative on optimisation of the social assistance system, in a move to financially assist only families in need. In order to accomplish this objective, a new social aid will be introduced on September 1, 2008 and will be granted after a testing of the necessity on basis of estimation of some “welfare” indicators. The future aid will be established on basis of the difference between the guaranteed monthly average earning of the family and the overall revenue of the family. According to preliminary estimates, approximately 70,000 families (about 250,000 persons) will benefit of the new social aid, additionally to the present beneficiaries of social assistance. Vladimir Voronin underlined that the mechanism of testing the needs of a family is a basic element of the new system and it shall be just and fair, it shall neither be bureaucratised nor stigmatise families seeking the social aid.

Elaboration of “Encyclopaedia of Moldova”

The chief of state reported actions aimed to elaborate the “Encyclopaedia of Moldova”, in particular, the registration of the public institution Encyclopaedia of Moldova, creation of a working group to elaborate the general concept of the encyclopaedia; conduct of researches needed to finalise the methodological framework. Voronin invited all participating parties to be very responsible and noted that the elaboration of the “Encyclopaedia of Moldova” shall become a priority of the plan on cooperation between the Government and the Academy of Sciences of Moldova in 2008.

Implementation of entrepreneur’s patent reform

Participants in the sitting have exchanged opinions regarding the execution of the Law # 208-XVI and examined reactions of the subjects who fall under this law. According to a report by the Ministry of Economy and Commerce, more than half (2,600) of patent holders who fall under the incidence of the first and second stages of implementation of this law have already changed their organisational form, registering individual enterprises and limited societies. Functionaries of the Ministry of Economy and Commerce, Fiscal Service, certification bodies are in a permanent touch with patent holders, in order to explain them the law and the mode of activity of former patent holders. Technical problems occurred in the territory were signalled after an exchange of opinions and it was noted that they are particularly linked to the third round of implementation of the law, which will begin in 2009. A representative of the Small Business Association recommended a considerable rise of the cost of patents instead of the change of the organisational form, citing an USAID study which finds that the fees paid to the state by individual enterprises are equivalent to those paid for activities based on current patents. The chief of state noted that the patent system in Moldova was a way for some categories of citizens to remedy the consequences of the deep economic crisis and now this system and the whole national economy are developing and shall approach civilised, European norms.

Conference on Security Policy

Moldova’s president has addressed the 44th Munchen (Germany) Conference on Security Policy, and he met Daniel Fried, U.S. assistant secretary of state, and Javier Solana, high representative of the European Union for the Common Foreign and Security Policy.

e-democracy.md