Thousands of patentees protest against authorities’ intention to leave them without earnings

Thousands of patent holders from different zones of Moldova protested on February 12, in Chisinau, against the authorities’ decision to leave them without earnings after the patent-based trade was annulled in compliance with the amendment to the Patent Law no 208. The square of the National Opera was flooded by protesters who arrived from Edinet, Briceni, Soroca, Cahul, Causeni, Orhei, Soldanesti etc. to protest against the elimination of patents which, as they claim, is their only source of revenue, Info-Prim Neo reports. The protest was organised by the Small Business Association (SBA) and the Committee for Defence of Citizens’ Rights (CDCR) and supported by a number of political parties. Taxi drivers, flower sellers, transporters, all those who created a workplace by themselves without the state’s help, have attended the protest meeting. They said they paid for the patents before unfolding their activity, and thus they lent the state. SBA chairman Eugen Roscovanu told Info-Prim Neo that about 40,000 people, most of them women, will lose their jobs after the Patent Law was amended. “This is the first protest meeting of a large number of protest actions which the patentees are determined to stage until they are heard. The country’s leadership ignores the problems of the small business, creation of workplaces. It does nothing to prevent people from fleeing abroad in order to earn their living”, the cited source says. As Roscovanu states, protest actions take proportion throughout Moldova, while transport patent holders are staging a hunger strike in front of Cahul’s local council. CDCR head Eduard Musuc told Info-Prim Neo that a larger number of people were expected to take part in the protest action, but the minibuses carrying the participants have been stopped by the Traffic Police and under different pretexts were sent back. Musuc welcomed the fact that more political parties and opinion leaders make common cause with the protesters, stating that having politicians and political parties engaged, the problem of the 40,000 patentees could be solved. One of the patentees, who works at the marketplace on Pan Halippa street, Veronica Iurcenco, told the state authorities that they pay no heed to Moldovan citizens, on the contrary, force them to abandon their children in the boarding schools and children houses and go abroad to work. The patentees were carrying placards chanting “Our children want eat too!”, “Down with Tarlev Government!”, “No “Metro” and restaurants, but – factories and plants!”, “We want to work, not to be unemployed!”, “Moldova – the country of Mafia”. The protesters broke into chants of “We want to work!”, “Freedom!” Recently, the People’s Assembly of Gagauzia has decided not to apply the Law nr.208 on the autonomy’s territory, succeeding to keep about 3, 250 workplaces.