EU PROJECT FOR CIVIL SOCIETY DEVELOPMENT COMPLETED IN GAGAUZIA

The EU-funded project “Development of Gagauzia Civil Society” was completed in the autonomy. At the final conference in Chisinau First Deputy Chairman of the Gagauzia Executive Committee Vadim Ceban said that over two years the autonomy’s nongovernmental organizations achieved considerable progress in their activity.

“Due to held from European partners the NGOs may be involved in work not only at the level of autonomy, but also in nationwide projects”, the official supposed.

Head of NGO “Piligrim-Demo” Mihail Serkeli said that the EU for the first time came to the autonomy with an idea of civil society development.

“We would like to see more openness from the side of authorities, especially in the field of information about the formation of certain budgets, about public expenditures”, the public activist said.

Gagauzia Popular Assembly (GPA) deputy Ekaterina Jekova said that there were no considerable changes over two years.

“There are many NGOs in Gagauzia, but they are all scattered and most of them are getting active only in the run-up to elections and sometimes in favor of certain politicians. These are not the goals you should follow”, the politician said, proposing to the nongovernmental sector to promote projects, useful for autonomy citizens, but not in favor of separate formations or persons.

“Often people in our villages and towns do not want to demand from the authorities the fulfillment of certain tasks due to various reasons, often due to the inertia, misunderstanding of what to demand from authorities. Thus, these forms of interaction should be assumed by civil activists”, she said.

Head of the “Pro-Europe” center in Comrat Irina Selezneova said that over 2 years of implementing projects, a series of seminars was held for members of 9 NGOs (six of which from rural area).

“Each time, European specialists were teaching young people about different ways of interaction with their countrymen. We regard that these seminars are important to help people understand that concrete problems in the region may be resolved through NGOs”, she said.