Romania’s experience is of reference to the Republic of Moldova in the process of adjusting the national legislation in the field of sports to the EU standards, Sergiu Gurin, secretary of state of the Ministry of Education and Research, stated in IPN’s public debate “Moldovan-Romanian cooperation in sports sector, opened opportunities”.
“When we started to design the new law on sport, we went to Romania to see how we can harmonize the legislation of the Republic of Moldova based on Romania’s experience. We constituted a working group, took into account the recommendations formulated by the counterparts from Romania. We, in the Republic of Moldova, hadn’t implemented a national sports strategy. Several attempts were made, but these failed. So as not to follow the same path, we consulted the Ministry of Sport of Romania as they had already seven strategies and have a very good experience and are working on the eighth strategy,” stated Sergiu Gurin.
According to him, the sports law of the Republic of Moldova was adopted in 1999 and is a remnant of the Soviet Union. It was designed to meet the then requirements and has a lot of drawbacks. “I can say one of them. For example, the sports federations, according to the law, cannot purchase sports equipment. It is banal, but this is a very big problem as only the ministry can now do this and can later pass on equipment to federations. But the procedure is difficult and lasts long. Also, owing to the same outdated law, today the athletes from sports schools cannot take part in national championships and have to found sports clubs,” stated the official.
Sergiu Gurin also said that the new law on sports should improve things. Furthermore, today the ministry is making effort to borrow the best practices from Romania, as regards the promotion of mass sport, starting from school sports clubs.
The secretary of state noted that following working visits paid to Romania, a number of methods to improve things in the sports sector of Moldova were identified. “We do not have sports medicine or research. We do not have specialists who would guide us. We saw how the sports institute of Romania works. We are now working out a new sports law that envisions the creation of a national sports institute,” stated Sergiu Gurin.
He added that ambitious sports development projects cannot be implemented as there are no appropriate funds for the purpose. However, discussions continue to be held to establish long-lasting cooperation relations between Moldova and Romania, including for obtaining financing from European sources. “In Romania, there is a program to develop the national sports oina. It is a nice experience and we proposed including such traditional sports of ours as wrestling and mace throw. This will enable to keep our national historic heritage and everything that is related to sport. We are a nation that is predisposed to sports, primarily individual sports. Our grandchildren will look at us with different eyes as we will keep and pass on our sports traditions,” said Sergiu Gurin.
The public debate entitled “Moldovan-Romanian cooperation in sports sector, opened opportunities” was staged in the framework of the project “Double integration through cooperation and information”, which is implemented by IPN News Agency with support from the Department for Relations with the Republic of Moldova of the Government of Romania. The content of this article does not represent the official position of the Department for Relations with the Republic of Moldova.
