Law No. 851-XIII on environmental audit and environmental impact assessment.

This Law determines targets, tasks and principles of environmental audit, environmental impact assessment, and also the basic rules for organization and application thereof. The Act consists of ten Sections: (1) general provisions; (2) documentation on environmental impact assessment (EIA); (3) documentation of environmental audit; (4) elaboration of environmental impact assessment (EIA) scheme; (5) publication and discussion of documentation on environmental audit; (6) participation of non-governmental entities in environmental impact assessment (EIA); (7) state documentation on environmental audit; (8) expert opinion on environmental audit; (9) transboundary effects and environmental audit; and (10) list of objects and activities requiring obligatorily environmental impact assessment (EIA). The state environmental audit shall be carried out by the authorized state central environmental institution. The basic principles of environmental audit shall be: (a) assumption of potential environmental hazards by any projected activity envisaging the use of natural resources; (b) compulsory environmental audit before decision-making on realization of a project; (c) complex environmental impact assessment (EIA); (d) scientific substantiation, objectivity and legality of the conclusions of environmental audit; and (e) transparency and consideration of public opinion. State environmental audit shall be mandatory for: (a) strategies and concepts of socio-economic development of the Republic of Moldova, some of its areas, districts, municipalities, cities and villages; and (b) schemes of placement and arrangement of landfills for industrial, domestic and agricultural wastes and residues of toxic substances, construction or arrangement of plants for their processing, treatment or destruction. State environmental audit of planning and project documentation shall be performed prior to the final review of the documentation as a whole. The time of the performance of state environmental audit of the documentation related to complex and potentially hazardous facilities and types of economic activities, including those requiring additional special scientific research, may be extended by the central environmental authority, but not more than three months.