Osoian, Ion

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PROCEDURAL AND INSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORK OF REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT 
IN THE CONTEXT OF THE EU-MOLDOVA ACTION PLAN IMPLEMENTATION 
 
Ion Osoian  
1. Introduction  
 
The regional policy is a chapter of accession negotiations of candidate states to the European Union, while 
successful negations in this area mean access to large structural funds. Given the fact that the European 
Neighbourhood Policy instruments are set accordingly to those featuring the EU enlargement process[1], 
the necessity of building a territorial framework to match the one of EU member states included the chap-
ter “Rural and regional development” in the EU-Moldova Action Plan (EUMAP). However, progresses 
made in this area are not covered enough by official and civil society reports on implementation of EU-
MAP. 
 
The regional development policy of Moldova was preponderantly the preoccupation of donor community 
and researchers and less of governments that ruled the country after the declaration of independence. The 
EU interest for the regional development planning in Moldova was constant by consecutively implement-
ing three TACIS programmes that helped drafting the concept, law and strategy on regional development. 
 
As a rule, the sub-national development was superposed to the administrative-territorial organisation and it 
changed when counties replaced districts and vice versa, being understood as sporadic urbanism and terri-
torial arrangements. The seriousness of intentions was confirmed just in late 2006, when the law on re-
gional development[2] was approved and budgetary funds were allocated for the regional development in 
2008. 
 
The purpose of this article is to radiograph the developing procedural and institutional framework of re-
gional development in order to early anticipate shortcomings capable of undermining the regional develop-
ment process. 
 
2. Procedural framework 
 
The regional development area is excessively regulated. The law on regional development is full of na-
tional or regional action regulations, with some of them being already in force and others being ready to be 
endorsed: the National Strategy for Regional Development; the Single Programming Document; opera-
tional plans; the Annual Implementation Plan; operational books; Regional Development Strategies for 
every region; regional operational plans; regulations of the National Coordination Council for Regional 
Development, Regional Development Councils, Regional Development Agencies, National Fund for Re-
gional Development and others. The overregulation of a new area will slow down the regional develop-
Policy Brief №2, May 29, 2008 
Association for Participatory Democracy 
ment process and amplify bureaucracy. Beneficiaries of funds will have to consult lots of documents and 
this requires time. In addition, the simplicity of administrative procedures reduces bureaucratic practices 
and increases development paces.  
 
The model of regional development institutionalised under the law above has some faults, with the main 
drawback envisaging the delimitation of regions. Only two out of six regions have the potential of true de-
velopment regions, in particular, the Centre, with the cities of Hincesti and Orhei as possible centres of the 
region, and the North, where the Balti municipality is an undeniable leader. Efforts to develop the South 
region with a potential centre in the city of Cahul could reach maximum revolutions only after the inclu-
sion of the Administrative Territorial Unit Gagauzia into the region. Otherwise, the latter will be incapable 
to use its development potential, given the discontinuity of territory divided into several wings, with ways 
of access between them crossing other administrative territorial units. The division of the South into two 
small regions reduces the quality of strategic planning. For example, an ample project on modernising the 
South’s infrastructure will require coordination between two regions and this fact may slow down the pro-
ject implementation, given political animosities in the region. 
 
The constitution of the development region Transnistria to cover localities from the left bank of the Dni-
ester, uncontrolled by Chisinau authorities, is also marked by political reasons. That is the case when bor-
ders of the political region do not match those of the economic region. The northern side of this region is 
normally integrated into the development region North and the central and southern areas into the Centre 
and partly into the South. Such a territorial situation would boost the credibility of the regional develop-
ment process. Firstly, this would strengthen a three-region model: Centre, North and South plus Chisinau, 
which would be close to the EU statistical territorial classification. While there are development regions 
such as NUTS II[3] in the EU, which are larger than all Moldova, the division of Moldova into six devel-
opment regions is an unaffordable luxury. Secondly, the integration of the Transnistrian region into exist-
ing regions is part of recent initiatives on modernisation and reintegration of infrastructure from both banks 
of the Dniester. The fact that it will be impossible to implement regional development projects on the left 
side of the Dniester for an indefinite term may classify these localities as depressive zones of the region, 
where development actions may be taken as far as the situation is relieved. 
 
The three-region model is indirectly aggregated by the central Government, too. This tacit consent is 
proved by the key strategic planning document of the country, the National Development Strategy (NDS)
[4], which proclaims the regional development as part of the five priorities, but calls for a temporary differ-
entiation of regional development actions. At a first stage (2007-2010), the Government will focus on 
strengthening capacities and developing conditions in the regions North, Centre and South, while in 2011-
2018 „favourable conditions are expected to launch development actions” in ATU Gagauzia and Transnis-
tria. The National Development Strategy meets the EUMAP, which outlines the promotion of a balanced 
regional development and reduction of economic and social differences between various regions of the 
country as goals of the “Rural and regional development” chapter. Another positive feature is that the NDS 
focuses on socio-economic dimension of regional development, while the mechanism of consolidation of 
institutional capacity for regional development is stipulated by the draft National Strategy for Regional 
Development. 
 
3. Institutional framework  
 
Regional development institutions may already start working after the Government has approved the ac-
tions to be taken in order to implement the Law on Regional Development[5]. However, the approval of 
regulations does not mean that they are operational. In fact, there are four institutions working under the 
auspices of the Ministry of Local Public Administration to a larger or smaller extent: 
 
The National Coordination Council for Regional Development (NCCRD) was established to approve, pro-
 3 
mote and coordinate goals of the regional development policy at national level. NCCRD consists of minis-
ters (of local public administration, economy and trade, finance, and others), heads of regional develop-
ment councils, and by a representative of the private sector nominated by each development region. A key 
competence of NCCRD is to finally approve financing for regional development projects.  
 
National Fund for Regional Development (NFRD). The Government has established the goal and strategic 
objectives of the regional development policy and actions needed to implement this policy for the first time 
in late 2001 in the medium-term strategy of socio-economic development of the Republic of Moldova 
(until 2005)[6]. Although the strategy stipulated the consideration of the opportunity to set up a regional 
development fund, which could finance various investment projects on infrastructure development and 
conditions to attract non-budgetary investments in disadvantaged areas, budgetary regulations adopted be-
fore 2007 do not stipulate such a fund. However, financial coverage is the best way to confirm the serious-
ness of plans. The 2008 state budget law foresees 130 million lei (about 10 million dollars when the budget 
law was voted, now the equivalent to about 13 million dollars). Under legislation, at least one percent of 
the state budget incomes will be allocated to the NFRD every budgetary year, and it may be supplemented 
by donors and private sector. Even if allocated, the funds are inaccessible because of the lack of an institu-
tional framework. No project was financed from this fund so far. 
 
The Regional Council for Development (RCD) is a deliberative regional structure without a juridical per-
sonality set up to draft, coordinate and monitor the regional development policy at level of development 
regions. Each district (and Balti municipality in case of the development region North) will be represented 
in RCD by four persons: district chairperson (mayor of the Balti municipality), a mayor and by a represen-
tative of civil society and private sector. Although it is built on the parity principle between local public 
administration representatives on one hand and representatives of civil society and private sector on the 
other hand, the option by RCD chairperson (who necessarily represents the local public administration) is 
decisive in case of a parity of votes. All members of RCD Centre, North and South have been selected and 
they will be shortly convoked for constitutive sittings. 
 
The Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) are established in every development region to be the execu-
tive of the region. They will be based in centres of development regions. The decentralisation to the agency 
of competences of holding public procurement tenders on account of NFRD is welcome. At the same time, 
the problem of adequate financing for tasks laid upon RDAs was not resolved yet. Responsibility for fi-
nancing RDAs was mostly left on shoulders of local public authorities. Besides providing offices, they will 
annually contribute with 0.15 percent of incomes of budgets of 2nd-level administrative territorial units to 
finance RDAs. However, resources expected from local administrations are insufficient, particularly for the 
RDA South. Regretfully, NFRD resources cannot be used to finance RDAs. RDAs could self-finance in 
the long run, but they cannot do this at the current institutional strengthening stage. 
 
4. Conclusions 
 
The elaboration and approval of the legal framework on regional development is welcome, but not enough. 
The regulation is not equivalent to implementation, while the remediation of shortcomings anticipated 
above is as difficult as the applicability of normative acts in force was not yet tested. It is not judicious to 
modify a normative act as long as the practice did not signal its inconveniences. However, certain short-
comings are already clear: delimitation of development regions (particularly in the South), abundance of 
regulatory acts on the area, absence of civil society in NCCRD, unclear funding for RDAs or selection of 
RDC members, etc. Some of them may be correlated through internal administrative procedures, while 
others shall wait for the implementation process to reveal new solutions.  
 
 
4 
Policy Brief №2, May 29, 2008 
 
Association for Participatory Democracy ADEPT 
 
Address:  V. Alecsandri str. 97, 
Chisinau, MD-2012,  
 Republic of Moldova 
 
Tel.: (+373 22) 21 29 92 
Fax:  (+373 22) 21 34 94 
E-mail: adept@e-democracy.md 
Web: www.e-democracy.md 
 
Notes: 
 
[1] Kelley, Judith, (2006) ‘New Wine in Old Wineskins: Promoting Political Reforms through the New European  
Neighbourhood Policy ’, Journal of Common Market Studies, Volume 44, Number 1, pp. 29-55. 
[2] Law no. 438 from 28.12.2006 concerning regional development in the Republic of Moldova published in Mo-
nitorul Oficial no. 021 on 16.02.2007. 
[3] Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS) of EUROSTAT; 
[4] Law # 295 from 21.12.2007 approving the national development strategy for 2008-2011 published in Monitorul 
Oficial # 18-20 on 29.01.2008. 
[5] Government Decision # 127 from 08.02.2008 concerning actions to implement the Law # 438-XVI on regional 
development in the Republic of Moldova from December 28, 2006, published in Monitorul Oficial # 34-36 on 
19.02.2008.      
[6] Law # 1415 from 19.12.2001, published in Monitorul Oficial # 5-8 from 10.01.2002. 
This Policy Brief  is published within the project “Moldova-EU 
Relations - Consolidate Public Information and Debate on Key Policy 
Developments”, implemented by Association for Participatory 
Democracy ADEPT with the financial assistance of the Soros-Moldova 
Foundation. 
ADEPT is an independent centre of analysis and consultation on the 
decision-making, political, electoral and socio-economic processes in 
the Republic of Moldova and in the wider region.  
ADEPT's mission is to promote the democratic values and support 
citizen active participation in public affairs.  
 
Strategic Objectives 
 
• Contribute to the efficient implementation of the governmental 
strategies aimed at the socio-economic development and democ-
ratization of Moldova; 
• Promote and consolidate the democratic institutions and proce-
dures; 
• Encourage and facilitate citizen participation in the decision-
making and governance processes.  
The author is solely responsible for statements and conclusions, 
which are not necessarily shared by the Soros-Moldova Foundation 
and ADEPT. 
 
© ADEPT Association, 2008. 
All rights rezerved. 


Procedural and Institutional Framework of Regional Development in the Context of the EU-Moldova Action Plan Implementation

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