Eurasia Press & News
The Moldovan Ministry of Foreign Affairs and European Integration has approved a new list of state officials whop have the right to hold diplomatic and service passports.
The list will be given shortly to the Moldovan Border Service, which will be authorized to withdraw such kind of special passports from persons who have no right to bear them.
Moldova’s Foreign minister Iurie Leanca stated at the last Saturday’s Government meeting that the previous leadership of the Republic of Moldova grossly violated domestic legislation and norms of international practice at issuing such special passports. As a result, a considerable number of state officials came to have several such passports.
Now that many Communist governmental officials are leaving their posts, they are not certainly hurrying to return their diplomatic and service passports, which is also a serious violation of rules.
However, diplomatic service experts are saying that the idea to withdraw special passports in such a way will hardly be very efficient. The thing is, most diplomatic and service passports currently on hands have quite long terms of validity. So, their bearers, even if they have no more right of holding them, have already invented a simple way out: they produce their usual foreign-travel passports at border-crossing stations. But when they come to the other side of the border, they take their diplomatic or service passports out of pockets and show them to foreign border officers.
