By the end of this year, Moldova will have adopted about 10,000 European standards, which is almost half of the 23,000 standards that it must adopt by 2018. Iurie Socol, director of the National Institute of Standardization, has told IPN that the European standards, unlike the old, Soviet ones (GOSTs), provide more advantages and allow the producers not only to export to the European market, but to also develop new products.
Iurie Socol said that Moldova inherited a whole system of Soviet standards. About 13,500 GOSTs are now in force and these are different from the European standards. If a company applies the GOST in the production process, its products are not accepted on the European market because they do not meet the requirements. An advantage of implementing the European standards is the fact that requirements that didn’t exist in the Soviet period appeared, like the demand that the products must be energy efficient. It is the same as in the case of the rights of the persons with special needs – the Soviet trolleybuses were not outfitted with wheelchair access.
Iurie Socol noted that the CIS countries also implement the European standards because they realized that the EU advanced a lot in particular spheres. The Moldovan economic entities are somehow reticent, but such a reaction is normal. In Romania the state initially imposed everyone to implement these standards, but now the businesses are interested in applying them so as to be able to sell on the EU market.
Cristian Ghinea, director of the Romanian Center for European Policies, explained what the European standards mean. “For example, the Soviet standards tell what the sausage should contain, while the European ones specify the proportions, how much fat these should contain and what they must not contain. For the Moldovan sausage producers to know how to make sausage, the National Institute of Standardization must use the European standards. When the producers apply these standards and are certified, they will be able to export sausages to the EU too,” she stated.
Romanian expert Diana Dorobantu, who heads the Publications Division of the Romanian Standards Association, said particular difficulties can be encountered in the process of implementing the European standards, related to the protection of copyright and payment of dues so that the standardization body formed part of the competent European bodies. Though the Romanian Standards Association is a private body, the Government of Romania pays the dues in its place. The Moldovan National Institute of Standardization could also become private as this offers it the independence needed in its activity.
The Representative Office in Moldova of the Romanian Center for European Policies, in partnership with the National Institute of Standardization, carries out a campaign to inform about the benefits of implementing the European standards in Moldova. The campaign is financially supported by USAID within the Moldova Partnerships for Sustainable Civil Society Project that is implemented by FHI 360.
