“The modernization that took place in Moldova is somehow superficial and this is a major problem,” the executive director of the Association for Participative Democracy ADEPT Igor Botan said at a news conference held to present the 15th number of the quarterly analytical report Euromonitor on Tuesday. Euromonitor is compiled by ADEPT and the Independent Analytical Center Expert-Grup. It appears with financial support from Soros-Moldova Foundation as part of the “EU-Moldova Relations – Monitoring Progress in the Context of the Eastern Partnership” project, Info-Prim Neo reports. “We adopted good laws, but they are inappropriately implemented. The events that followed the April elections showed that Moldova’s modernization is not of the highest quality,” Igor Botan said. The authors of the report say that in the second quarter of this year Moldova suffered setbacks as regards the observance of the fundamental human rights and freedoms, the independence and impartiality of the legal system, the freedom of the media, access to information and the settlement of the Transnistrian dispute. The country’s economy was also affected, causing the reduction in budgetary revenues. Foreign trade saw downward trends. “The exports halved, while the money lost value and the lending volumes decreased. The foreign investments fell. The administrative measures led only to rises in fines,” said Valeriu Prohnitchi, director of Expert-Grup Center. According to him, Moldova is not very attractive. The investors avoid it as the latest events discredited it. The introduction of the visa regime with Romania led to the diminution of the volume of trade with one of Moldova’s main trade partners. Many companies stopped working. However, the European Union is ready to offer Moldova a chance. But this chance depends greatly on the way in which the parliamentary elections will be conducted and if Moldova proves maturity and returns to normality after elections, say the authors of Euromonitor. The report follows the implementation of the reforms initiated under the EU-Moldova Plan of Action for April-June 2009 in such areas as political dialogue and democratic institutions, strengthening administrative capacity, the Transnistrian conflict, justice, development and economic reforms, social reforms, foreign trade, and business climate.