AIP Warns: Draft Law on Postal Service Conflicts with European Standards and Promotes Corporate Interests

The Association of Independent Press (AIP) has sent a letter to the Parliament and the Parliamentary Commission on culture, education, research, youth, sport and mass media, saying that the draft law on the postal service, adopted in the first reading on December 29, 2015, excludes from the categories of universal postal services collection, sorting, transportation and distribution of books and catalogs, newspapers and other periodicals. It is contrary to Directive 97/67/EC of the European Parliament on the standards for development of the internal postal market of the Community and improvement of the quality of services.

“This amendment will practically mean that the “Posta Moldovei” State Enterprise – national postal service provider that has a de facto dominant position on the market – will no longer have the legal obligation to receive, sort, transport and distribute periodicals,” mentions the AIP, drawing the MPs’ attention to the fact that “this situation would cause the bankruptcy of many media outlets, violate the citizens’ constitutional right to information and damage pluralism of opinion in Moldova.”

The AIP also sent to the Parliament an analysis of the current rules on distribution of periodicals and several motivated proposals to amend the draft law on postal service, asking to exclude from it “amendments developed for corporate interests, which are contrary to the general public interest and to the right to information, enshrined in the Constitution of Moldova.”