​WINE AND VINE LAW PROVISIONS ARE IGNORED IN DRAFT STATE BUDGET

The state budget laws from previous years, as well as the draft 2017 state budget, do not include funds for developing the viticulture and winemaking, though it is implied in the law on wine and vine.

According to managers of several wineries, which have hundreds of hectares of wine plantations, the article 23.3 of the law on wine and vine implies that annual budgets should include mandatory contributions to the Wine and Vine Fund.

“It is about planning sums in the size, equal to sums of contributions, made by winemakers over the previous year. But these financial parameters have never been fulfilled. Moreover, it is impossible to observe these, as the 2016 has not ended yet, while the 2017 state budget expenditures have already been made up”, the Infotag interviewee said.

The Regulation on grapes and wine, approved by the governmental decree #726 on September 16, 2013, which provides to economic agents to make these contributions to the Wine and Vine Fund within 120 days since the day of circumstance appearance.

“Exact sums of deductions to this Fund in 2016 may be received not earlier than in May 2017, when the work on elaborating 2018 budget should already be carried out”, said heads of large wineries.

Infotag addressed to the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Industry with a demand to explain how the fulfillment of the Law on Wine and Vine provisions is ensured in practice.

“We are presenting to the Finance Ministry the figures, which should be included in the state budget expenditures, calculated on the basis of forecasts”, said deputy chairman of the department for policies and regulations in wine and vine sector of the Ministry Valeriu Cebotari.

According to the Ministry, this is the way out of the legislative deadlock for today.

Infotag’s dossier: The article 32.3 was introduced into the law on vine and wine more than 5 years ago. Since then, neither the Parliament, nor the Government or ministries have ever cared about this absurdity. Though sums transferred and sums, supposed to be received, have different financial sense. And such state of things does not bother anyone for already long time, because discrepancies in normative acts have become an ordinary attribute to the process of “cooking” Moldovan legislation.