Brussels, 22/09/2015 (Agence Europe) - On Monday 21 September, the managing director for Europe and Central Asia at the European External Action Service (EEAS), Luis Felipe Fernandez de la Pena, said he was concerned at the political instability in the Republic of Moldova.
“Our main concern is the political stability or, rather, the political instability. The speed of rotation of prime ministers is worrying”, he said at the meeting of the EU-Moldova parliamentary association committee. Valeriu Strelet, who took up office on 30 July, is the fourth prime minister the country has had in 2015.
Luis Felipe Fernandez de la Pena, like Vassilis Maragos, the acting director for the Eastern Neighbourhood at the European Commission's DG for Neighbourhood and Enlargement Negotiations, also called on Moldova to do more with regard to reforms. The two men highlighted reform of the banking and financial sector, transparency in political life, judicial and police reform, the business environment and the situation of the separatist region of Transnistria and the autonomous region of Gagauzia. “The population expects much” on these subject and “failure is not an option”, said de la Pena, who also underlined the fight against corruption, which is a “cancer”.
Daniela Cujba, Moldova's deputy minister for foreign affairs, who is responsible for European integration, acknowledged that there was a “clear need for rigorous action” in fighting corruption, in justice and the banks. At the beginning of April, the Central Bank of Moldova announced that it had discovered the disappearance of €927 million from Moldovan banks.
Maragos also underlined the EU's concerns as regards Moldova's economic problems. Hailing the ongoing negotiations between Chisinau and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), he said that a programme with the IMF was crucial and that an agreement with this institution was needed for possible new macro-financial assistance from the EU.
De la Pena stated that the EU was currently in the process of assessing Moldova in terms of the association agreement (which has been provisionally applied since 1 September 2014), and that the results should be known next month. Cujba said that after a year, taking the whole agreement, 15% of the acts of the agreement had been harmonised with the European directives. She also said that there had been “very good progress” on harmonisation regarding the deep and comprehensive free trade area.
Although the Moldovans thus highlighted their resolve for Moldova to integrate with the EU - which is, according to Moldovan parliamentarian Maria Ciobanu, “the best way to change the country” and the “main national objective” - de la Pena restricted himself to praising the association agreement. “Through the association agreement, with a deep and comprehensive free trade area, the EU offers the best roadmap possible for Moldova's modernisation, for transforming the country into a modern European country, for improving and developing relations with the European family”, he said. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)