Parliamentary summer recess will begin in Moldova unusually early this year: some lawmakers will go to international resorts already before this upcoming weekend.
On Tuesday, the Parliament Permanent Bureau, which usually gathers to work out agendas of plenary meetings for subsequent 2 weeks, decided all of a sudden that the current Spring-Summer Session would be completed on July 13.
To somehow compensate for such an early departure, the Bureau decided that plenary meetings this week will be held not only on Thursday and Friday as usual but also on Wednesday, and deputies are going to consider over 30 bills, including such essential ones as the draft Law on 2013 Budget-and-Tax Policy and amendments to the Law on the 2012 State Budget.
Lawmakers will come back from the recess only in early autumn.
Some local observers are explaining the sudden decision by the AEI parliamentary majority to go on vacations with their desire to avoid the open parliamentary hearings being initiated by the Communist opposition to discuss the crisis-like situation developing in the farm sector and questions of ensuring the country’s food security.
The Communist Party is demanding to organize such hearings without delay – on July 19-20 at the latest because they say the continuing draught demands immediate measures. On Tuesday, the parliamentary Communist faction organized special hearings of profiled specialists, and Minister of Agriculture and Food Industry Vasile Bumacov admitted that the situation is really very tough and the grain harvest, in particular wheat grain, is going to be about one-third poorer than in 2011.