Moldovan civil aviation authority switched from subordination of government to transport ministry's one

Chisinau, 20 April /MOLDPRES/ - The Civil Aviation Authority will switch from the subordination of the government to the one of the Transport and Roads’ Infrastructure Ministry (MTID), under a draft on amendment and completion of the law on civil aviation, approved by the cabinet of ministers today.    

The concerned amendments were dictated by the commitments Moldova assumed before the European Union in the civil aviation sector and “regard a gradual increase of the degree of rapprochement and compatibility of Moldova’s legislation with the EU legislation, which represents a primary condition for developing the air sector,” Transport Minister Iurie Chirinciuc said.   

Under a legislative act approved in 2013, the Civil Aviation Authority (AAC) was switched to the cabinet’s subordination. According to Chirinciuc, “the last two years’ experience proved impossibility to establish and carry out constructive relations between the Transport and Roads’ Infrastructure Ministry and the Civil Aviation Authority as separate entities, in order to consciously implement the Common Aviation Area Agreement (ASAC) and use the full capacity of the technical assistance project, financed by the European Commission.”  

Moldova is to transpose and implement over 70 normative acts from the aviation sector, in line with the Agreement on Common Aviation Area with EU. In this respect, the draft’s authors said, “the most judicious option is the concentration and division of the present institutional capacities in the concerned field.” The existence of the Civil Aviation Authority independently from the ministry “clearly runs counter the provisions of the law on central public administration, as well as the commitments taken before the European Union.”

The Civil Aviation Authority has earlier said that “it managed to develop drafts on transposition of 57 European regulations/directives, of which about 30 were submitted to MTID, to be promoted for approval by the government.” Yet, the lack of specialists with enough education in the air transport at the ministry, “a fact ascertained also in a report by the EU’s Technical Assistance Project, probably hindered the promotion by MTID of all drafts submitted by AAC for the transposition of EU’s legislation.”   

The draft law is to be submitted to parliament for consideration.

(Reporter V. Bercu, editor A. Raileanu)