Patentees protest against authority’s decision to leave them without earnings

About 2,000 patentees from different zones of Moldova protested Monday, March 12, in Chisinau, as part of the third meeting organized by the Small Business Association (SBA) and the Committee for Defence of Citizens Rights (CDCR). They staged the protest against the Power’s decision to leave roughly 40,000 people without sources of subsistence after annulling the enterpriser patent, Info-Prim Neo reports. The protesters who arrived from different raions declared that the Law no. 208 regarding the enterpriser patents transformed them into people marginalised by authorities, forced to leave their homes and families and flee abroad. Protesters say that after they lent the State, being obliged to pay the cost of patents, it has cast them into unemployment and poverty, depriving them of jobs that they created by themselves without the State’s help. SBA head Eugen Roscovanu says the present leadership of Moldova ignores the problems related to the small business, and creation of workplaces, without taking concrete actions to determine people to stay at home and not to leave abroad to earn their living. As Roscovanu says, the protests took proportion throughout the country, as more and more persons join the protesters. According to CDCR head Eduard Musuc, the protest actions that started a month ago are supported by more and more political parties and opinion leaders. He asserts that the protest will last until the Law nr.208, which is contradictory to the EU-Moldova Action Plan, will be abrogated. Protesters are determined to call on the international organisations to cease financing Moldova until the problems related to small business are solved. The protesters’ rage aroused also because authorities do not want to annul the Law no.208, as they did in Gagauzia, where the People’s Assembly of Gagauzia has decided not to apply it on the autonomy’s territory, succeeding to keep about 3,250 workplaces. The patentees were carrying posters chanting “Our Children Want Eat Too!”, “Down with Tarlev Cabinet!”, “We Want Jobs, Not Unemployment!”, “Moldova – the Country of the Mob”.