Important steps have been taken the past year to transpose the European directives concerning the monitoring of air quality and climate change policies and others. “In 2023, we managed to approve the law on greenhouse gas emissions and now we will ensure much stricter monitoring of these. As regards climate change, we must transpose a lot of directives. Work is done in this regard. The Republic of Moldova undertook to contribute, alongside the member states of the European community. We are now working on the national system for monitoring the activities that have an impact on climate change. We are now including also the aviation system into the system of monitoring and reporting on emissions. Work is also done on a bill to amend the law on water. In the field of waste management, we managed to transpose a number of documents, directives, the general framework on waste management,” Minister of Environment Iordanca-Rodica Iordanov stated in public hearings staged by the Parliament’s commission on foreign policy and European integration on the implementation of the Moldova – EU Association Agreement, IPN reports.
Iordanca-Rodica Iordanov noted that a number of the planned measures are overdue. To advance faster in the process of harmonizing the national legislation with the European one, the Ministry’s team needs to be strengthened. In this regard, a reform will be done at the Ministry and at the subordinate institutions. “We will reorganize the Ministry so as to provide the department with specialists in the covered areas. At the moment, the Ministry has 45 employees of the 62 set initially. According to calculations, we need about 100 persons. We are now having discussions with the Ministry of Finance so as to ensure this extension. Of those employed, more than half were involved in the process of transposing the EU directives,” stated the minister.
The commission members and the minister expressed their concern about the absorption of funds. They said that there are two big problems at the moment – the shortage of staff with experience in attracting funds and implementation projects, and the corruption existing in the system. A number of institutions are to be reformed by the end of this year, including the Environment Agency and the Inspectorate for Environmental Protection.
Iordanca-Rodica Iordanov noted it was proposed creating a control body at the Ministry of Environment for investigating the corruption risks in institutions and for ensuring control over the developments.
Members of the commission said that it is hard to bring professionals to the Ministry without motivating them. The MPs said they will focus on the constitution of a group of experts who will offer assistance in further transposing the EU directives. They urged the representatives of the Ministry of Environment to be more present in the public sphere, with clearer communication.
