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Today, 2 October 2019, Promo-LEX Association in partnership with the European Center for Not-for-Profit Law (ECNL) presented the 2017-2018 CSO Meter Moldova. This Report is an assessment of the enabling  environment of civil society organizations in the Republic of Moldova in 2017-2018.

‘CSO Meter is a tool developed to support the regular and consistent monitoring and assessment of the environment in which CSOs operate in the Eastern Partnership countries’, highlighted Luben Panov, representative of the European Center for Not-for-Profit Law (ECNL). ‘It consists of a set of standards and indicators in ten different areas to measure both law and practice. It is based on international standards and best practices. The goal is a constant monitoring, so that after a certain period we can talk about developments or setbacks in the country’, added the expert.

The ten key areas underlying the assessment are the following: freedom of association, equal treatment, access to funding, freedom of peaceful assembly, right to participation in decision-making, freedom of expression, right to privacy, State duty to protect, State support and State-CSO cooperation.

‘In each of the ten areas there are more or less deficiencies. It is worrying that the dynamics of the indicators suggest a negative trend, at least before the latest events on the political scene in the Republic of Moldova in 2019’, noted Florin Gisca, the author of the Report and expert at Promo-LEX Association. ‘Given our new government, the change, at least declarative, of certain intentions is also linked to hopes and expectations of changing the attitude of political leaders, of public institutions towards civil society organisations. This attitude was one of the main destructive factors that led to a worse involvement in the decision-making and the limitation of the freedom of expression of the civil society’, declared Florin Gisca.

The Report provides for a number of recommendations, including the adoption by the Parliament of the Law on Non-Commercial Organisations in the second reading, simplification of CSO registration procedure, strengthening the Law on Philanthropy. Other recommendations refer to ensuring a transparent decision-making by all public institutions through the legal public consultation mechanisms and correctly implementing the Law on the Access to Information of Public Interest.

The report can be consulted here.

For more information, please contact:
Carolina Bondarciuc, Communication Officer, Promo-LEX Association;
GSM: 060 280 980; E-mail: [email protected]