Moldovan Civil Aviation Authority says inefficiency, procrastination accusations groundless

Chisinau, 12 February /MOLDPRES/- Transports and Road Infrastructure Ministry requires that the Civil Aviation Authority (AAC) switches under its subordination, as the existence of two separated bodies would substantially block the promotion of legislative documents in the field. On the other hand, AAC believes any accusations, according to which “it slows down and inefficiently coordinates the implementation of the common aviation area agreement, are unjustified and groundless”.

A press release issued by AAC today, states that it “has managed so far to carry out 57 draft laws on the transposition of EU directives/regulations, among which 30 have been submitted to the Transports and Road Infrastructure Ministry to be further approved by the government”. However, the lack of experts with an adequate training in the air transport sector within the ministry, “a fact that was also ascertained in a report on the EU Technical Assistance Project, has probably hindered the ministry’s availability to promote AAC’s drafts aiming to transpose the EU legislation”.

The large amount of drafts on the transposition of EU regulations (57) carried out by AAC “confirms AAC leadership’s firm commitment to implement the abovementioned project (86 documents in total)”. AAC says EU’s recommendations to ensure its independency from the Transports and Road Infrastructure Ministry are necessary to eliminate risks related to conflicts of interest, that could possibly arise between the Transports and Road Infrastructure Ministry and Air Moldova.

The Transports and Road Infrastructure Ministry submitted for public consultations a draft law amending and supplementing the civil aviation law, providing for returning AAC back into the ministry’s subordination.

“The experience of the last two years showed that it is impossible to build and develop constructive ties between the Transports and Road Infrastructure Ministry and AAC if both stay separated. It would also be impossible to consciously implement the common aviation area agreement and use the technical assistance project financed by the European Commission to its full capacity,” the draft law’s explanatory note states.

According to the draft’s authors, “AAC’s independence of the ministry obviously runs counter the provisions of the specialty local public administration law, as well as to the commitments Moldova assumed in front of EU”. The Transports and Road Infrastructure Ministry requires that AAC gets back into its subordination, as it was until 2013.

(Reporter V. Bercu, Editor L. Alcaza)