New platform on the Parliament level
On 9 June, 2023 the Parliament adopted a decision regarding the approval of the Platform for dialogue and civic participation in the decision-making process of the Parliament. The purpose of the platform is to:
- make the participation of civil society and other interested parties more efficient;
- involve them as widely as possible in the decision-making process; and
- encourage citizens' civic initiatives.
The decision to create the platform is a priority action established in the field of "Cooperation with civil society", reflected in Recommendation no. 1/2022 of the EU-Republic of Moldova Association Council of August 22, 2022 regarding the EU-Republic Association Program Moldova (pt. 3. I. Democracy, human rights and good governance, sub point. 6).
New structure for opening more dialogue and meaningful engagement on the government level
On 9 June, 2023, the State Chancellery concluded the public consultations on the amendments to the Government decision 967/2016 regarding the public consultation mechanism with civil society in the decision-making process. Earlier, the draft amendment has been subject to public debates held on 19 May, 2023, with representatives of public authorities, interested institutions and civil society.
The purpose of the amendments is to establish a permanent consultative platform with CSOs with the following objectives:
- Consolidation of the central public administration authority's dialogue with the parties involved in the decision-making process;
- Ensuring’ the platform’s efficient operation, with the parties being equally responsible for the results of the platform's activity;
- Ensuring the submission of proposals and/or recommendations, the discussion of received opinions to increase the contribution of the parties involved to the projects discussed by decisions/normative acts/public policy documents with an impact of public interest.
Division of roles in the central public administration and existing mechanisms
The amendments include a Regulation regarding the organisation of the activity of the permanent consultative platform within the authority of the central public administration. According to the Regulation, the Platform will be chaired by a General Secretary or Secretary of State. It will have a secretary of the platform appointed from within the subdivision and it will have permanent members from the public authority and from civil society - according to the areas of competence, delegated upon request from CSOs.
The draft was developed in order to implement the conditionality no. 8, regarding the increase of the involvement of civil society in the decision-making processes at all levels, from the Action Plan for the implementation of the measures proposed by the European Commission in its Opinion on the application for the accession of the Republic of Moldova to the European Union.
Between 2010-2019, a similar mechanism called the National Participation Council functioned at the level of the government, but eventually became obsolete and was disavowed both by many CSOs and the government.
The new platforms envisaged by the Parliament and government do not substitute the existing mechanisms of participation in the decision making processes, which include:
- on the parliament level a few forms of civic participation already regulated by other normative acts, such as informing interested parties, permanent consultation, active participation, parliamentary hearings and the annual Conference with the CSOs. The next Annual Conference with the CSOs is planned on 16 June 2023.
- on the government level participation through permanent or ad-hoc working groups, public debates, public consultations and other tools and formats provided by the Law 239/2008 on transparency in the decision making process 239/2008.