PARLIAMENTARY MAJORITY VOTES DOWN EVERYTHING PROPOSED BY THE OPPOSITION

At the Parliament's plenary meeting on Thursday, the parliamentary majority preferred not to adopt all the 10 bills prepared by the opposition Party of Socialists. The voting-down job today advanced so smoothly that the Parliament had time enough for considering questions even from the Friday's plenary agenda.

It is noteworthy that the Thursday marked the so-called "opposition day". The thing is, earlier this year the majority decided that every month one plenary meeting would be dedicated only to bills and proposals put forward by the parliamentary opposition. As a result, the first such "opposition day" in the history of the Moldovan parliamentarism turned out to be definitely not in the favor of the minority camp.

The first bill on the agenda was concerning the pension system. It stipulated that the indexation of pensions is done twice a year - on April 1 and October 1. Namely, if a pension is below the official subsistence level, it is indexed by a coefficient of 20% on every indexation date - until the pension size reaches the subsistence level.

The deputies voted down also the bill on providing a monthly allowance of 100 lei to the victims of political repressions. The aggregate cost of this allowance would be really very small, only 1,200 lei a month, because there are only 12 such persons on the official list, said the drafters. However, this bill was also declined "because the legislation currently in force fails to comprise all the categories of citizens who suffered from Soviet political repressions", the majority said.

Next bills pertained to certain financial privileges for the elderly whose pensions are below the average pay size in the national economy; the right to social insurance for persons on seasonal works who have no permanent service record; the raising to 21 years of the age limit for buying alcoholic beverages.

The majority refused to support also the opposition's initiatives on canceling advanced payments for utility services; on amending the Law on the Entrepreneurship Patent; on reducing the VAT on flour and vegetable oil; and yet another bill on certain changes to be introduced into the Tax Code.

Besides this, the Socialists were proposing to introduce a legal punishment for the Government's failure to submit the draft State Budget to the Parliament by the law-stipulated deadline of October 1.