Emergency Commission orders more support measures during state of emergency

Chisinau, 10 April /MOLDPRES/- The Commission for Emergencies had a meeting today to order more measures to support citizens and entrepreneurs during the state of emergency caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Following the decision of the Constitutional Court to suspend the law by which the Government assumed responsibility for a package of anti-crisis measures, the Commission was convened to take necessary decisions, so as not to stop the help of citizens and economic agents in this difficult situation,” Prime Minister Ion Chicu said.

The commission decided to set out unemployment benefit worth 2,775 lei, including for the categories of unemployment benefit beneficiaries that are registered as unemployed, but do not meet the criteria for granting unemployment aid.

At the same time, it was decided to support low-income families, increase of the minimum monthly income for disadvantaged families up to 1,300 lei during the state of emergency and the increase of the minimum monthly income for each child up to 975 lei.

The commission also decided subsidizing the expenses of the employers related to the payment of the salary / allowance if technical unemployment or stationary, 100% / 60% taxes and contributions to salaries / allowances paid, depending on the reason for the cessation of the activity.

Patent holders who have ceased their activity during the emergency period will be exempted from the patent payment. Also, for this category, for the persons who practice independent activity, the individual entrepreneurs who stopped their activity during the state of emergency, will be refunded the social contributions in a fixed amount. The economic agents that have ceased their activity according to the Commission decisions will benefit from postponement until July 25 of the local tax payment deadline.

At the same time, medical staff directly involved in the fight against coronavirus will receive an additional basic salary.

"All these measures included in the Instruction of April 10 of the Commission are valid only during the state of emergency. This legal approach did not allow us, for example, to include in the document the reduction of the VAT rate from 20% to 15% for the HORECA sector, because the effect of this action exceeds the term of the emergency period. Likewise, we could not include in the Instruction 50% taxation of airport charges”, he said.

The Constitutional Court announced on 9 April it admitted the request of a MP and suspended, until the case was settled, the action of Law No56 of 2 April on measures to support citizens and business during the emergency and amending some laws for which the government has assumed responsibility.

The Constitutional Court will consider the complaints on 13 April.  In order to prevent the spread of infections caused by COVID-19 virus, access to the public meeting will be prohibited.