Central Market sellers seek justice from City Hall

Several hundreds of the capital’s Central Market sellers have protested on Monday, February 5, in front of the City Hall, claiming the actions of the market’s administration that refuses to prolong their rent contracts, thus forcing them to register as individual enterprises. The protestants stated that even though the entrepreneurship patent, according to which most sellers are working, doesn’t expire before 2009, the market administration has renegotiated the rent contracts only with those who have opened companies. The administrator of the Central Market Ion Stratulat has denied the statements of the sellers, claiming that these people misunderstood the situation and most of these misunderstandings come from lack of proper legislation knowledge. “We are in the beginning of the year and a significant share of the contracts need to be renegotiated, taking into consideration the amendments that make illegal, starting January 2007, the entrepreneurship patent for a series of activities. The owners, whose licence didn’t expire yet, are free to activate within the conditions of the current legislation”, says Ion Stratulat. The protestors didn’t wear posters and didn’t break into chanting slogans. Even though they came to the City hall looking for the interim mayor, Veaceslav Iordan didn’t go out to talk to them. After over an hour of staying out in the cold, several vendors were allowed to see the vice-mayor Petru Svet. The media was prohibited from joining. The protesters started to leave out, after their colleagues sent out the message of the vice-mayor, which said that their expenses for obtaining the patent will be repaid. Most of those unsatisfied that they have to open their own firm have stated that they will participate on February 12 in another protest against the authorities’ decision to cancel the entrepreneurship patent. The protest was not authorised. Other protests of small business representatives against the amendments to the Patent Law have taken place earlier in several places throughout the country. Patentees blame the authorities for leaving them without earnings. Even though the state has taken the responsibility to cover the costs needed to register enterprises, they say they fear that the government will not keep its promise and then, they will be forced to look for means to liquidate the opened companies.