ACCESS TO ENVIRONMENTAL INFORMATION IN MOLDOVA IS A VICTIM OF OLD MENTALITY AND BUREAUCRACY

Moldova, as a Party of the Aarhus Convention from 1999 until now, could not solve the issue of free access to environmental information for the public. The article analyses the reasons for this stagnation and how to find a successful solution. Two communications to the Aarhus Convention Compliance Committee are analyzed with the demonstration of the sources of the problem: the old mentality,the lack of political will of the government to solve the issue, and the intentions of bureaucracy to get bribes for the environmental information provision and to preserve the monopoly on the data collected by public money. Such a situation creates serious obstacles for research dealing with environmental data and for international agencies in their intentions to provide technical assistance to Moldova in many spheres. As a result of the multiyear inaction, the Ministry of Environment, responsible for the Aarhus Convention implementation, is now placed in an uncomfortable position.