Parliament adopted a bill to provide merit allowances to people of art who turned 50 in the final reading. The allowance will be offered monthly, will not be taxed and will be equal to an average official salary, IPN reports.

The merit allowance is an allocation offered for life for special accomplishments and remarkable activity in music, singing, cinematography, literarture, plastic arts, theater art, architecture, and movable and immovable national cultural heritage. The proposals for providing such allowances will be submitted annually by the Ministry of Culture and will be analyzed by a special national commission, which will select the recipients.

Bill author, Liberal-Democratic MP Ghenadie Ciobanu said the financial assistance will be offered from the state budget. The social changes of the last two decades affected first of all culture and the people of art. The intellectuals and the people of art found themselves marginalized and without concrete social protection from the state. Most of them receive low pensions and salaries that cannot meet their basic necessities.