The European Parliament has announced that the taking of an eventual decision about the provision of €100 million in assistance to the Republic of Moldova will not necessarily mean its immediate implementation. According to a statement about the situation in the Republic of Moldova, read in the plenary sitting of the European Parliament in the evening of May 16, the Moldovan authorities, before the disbursement of the first installment, will have to assume the implementation of a number of measures defined in the Memorandum of Understanding between the two sides, IPN reports.
The statement says that many of the key problems of the Republic of Moldova persist. Among these are the politicization of state institutions, widespread corruption, non-ensuring of the independence of the judiciary and delay in investigating the banking frauds. MEP of the Group of the European People’s Party Cristian Preda said he is against the provision of financial assistance to the Republic of Moldova. He noted that not the Moldovan citizens benefit from EU assistance, but the kleptocratic elites in Chisinau.
“The only argument presented by Chisinau in favor of the provision of this support is that the Government is pro-European. This is not true. The Government is controlled by an oligarch, Mister Plahotniuc, who buys MPs by piece. One oligarch remained of the pro-European coalition in Chisinau and this cooperates with a servant of Putin. As the freedom of the media is trampled underfoot and the rule of law remains an empty word, we cannot send money for this to be wasted by these elites,” stated Preda.
For his part, MEP of the Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats Andi Cristea said the European Parliament by this weekend will approve the mandate for entering into negotiations on the provision of €100 million in macro-financial assistance to the Republic of Moldova. ”We will apply strict conditionality criteria for transferring these funds. Such conditions will be linked to the disbursement of each of the three installments. We follow the reformation of the electoral system in Chisinau. Next week, the Joint Commission of the European Parliament and Euronest will meet in Chisinau in anticipation of the bill appraisal of the Venice Commission,” said Cristea.
The European Parliament delayed the provision of the macro-financial assistance approved for Moldova this January for at least one month amid concerns about the political developments in the country, related to the change in the electoral system, expressed by a number of parliamentary groups. On May 16, representatives of the European Parliament, the European Commission and the Council of the EU were to consider methods of providing the money, but the discussions were put off.
