Ruling party rejects proposal to suspend law banning patent-based entrepreneurial activity

At the Parliament’s sitting on November 29, the parliamentary group of the Moldova Noastra Alliance Party proposed including in the agenda a motion to suspend the law that bans the patent-based entrepreneurial activity until 2015. AMN leader Serafim Urecheanu said that the party’s MPs tabled a new draft law following requests made by hundreds of small entrepreneurs during the recent protests. After the Communists introduced the amendments banning the patent-based entrepreneurial activity on 7 July 2006, about 36,000 citizens learned that they can remain without their only source of income, Serafim Urecheanu said. Given that the modifications made by the Communists will have a negative social and economic impact from 1 January 2008, the authors of the draft law consider that their initiative should be examined without delay, reason for which it was formulated in a way that is easily applicable. It suggests postponing the implementation of the law until 2015, the AMN president said. But the Communist MPs voted down Urecheanu’s proposal. The Small Business Association as well as organisations and political parties staged about 100 protests throughout Moldova this year, demanding that the Law No. 208 that bans the activity under patent in a number of areas be cancelled.