The Moldovan Association of Road Builders has addressed to the country's leadership with a request to postpone the introduction of European standards because the sector is not ready to introduce the new requirements to be met with asphalt and related building materials stipulated in the European Directives.

At the news conference held in Infotag on Monday, Association Chairman Boris Gherasim said that the road builders' numerous addresses to the Ministry of Economy and Infrastructure with such a request gave no result.

"Due to this, the traditional springtime patching repair of roads would not be started in Moldova until now because profiled enterprises do not yet produce asphalt according to new European standards. As a result, in a matter of one week or so, small post-winter pits on the roads develop into several such pits or into one large hole, which requires much greater expenditures for road repair", said Gherasim.

Another participant in the news conference, Chairman of the Association of Consultant Engineers Valeriu Severin said that the road builders understand the importance of transition to European standards.

"The transition will raise the quality of the construction and repair of roads, and they will then serve much longer. But at the present moment, the sector appears to be not ready for such a change, so we recommend prolonging the switching over to the EU standards, which Moldova is supposed to implement according to the EU-Moldova Association Agreement", said Valeriu Severin.

According to experts' cautious estimates, to transit to the European Union's road standards, minimum 100 million lei will be required from contractor companies. Addressing to the Parliament, President and Government, the news conference participants stressed that in other countries, e.g. in Romania, the State rendered financial assistance for such a transition. But in Moldova there is nothing of this kind.

"Yet one more essential thing: in the neighbor Romania, the transition deadline was postponed twice, and in Poland - even 3 times", said the specialists.

Boris Gherasim stressed that due to delays and standstills, more than 200 important specialists have lately resigned from the road construction companies, "and this negative process is gaining momentum because the workers need to receive salaries to feed their families".