The Government is initiating discussions with the Prosecutor General’s Office, the Anticorruption Prosecutor’s Office, the National Anticorruption Center and the Competition Council to see where support is needed so that they can make progress on the relevant European Commission recommendations, announced State Chancellery Secretary Adrian Băluțel.
A fresh preliminary report by the European Commission shows that Moldova has fully implement three out of nine of its recommendations, namely the amendment of the electoral legislation, the involvement of civil society in decision-making, and ensuring respect for human rights. The conditions related to the justice reform, the fight against corruption, de-oligarchization and public administration reform are yet to be met.
“The authorities should now focus on three conditions that have been evaluated with average progress, namely anti-corruption, the fight against organized crime and money laundering, and the public administration reform. In the Commission’s preliminary opinion, even if it is a verbal one to the member states, it is clear what the European Commission’s expectations are. Regarding the fight against corruption, the Moldovan authorities must ensure that the anti-corruption institutions, the National Anticorruption Center and the Anti-corruption Prosecutor’s Office in particular, are sufficiently competent to ensure an effective investigation of high-level corruption cases. As regards money laundering, a bill on civil forfeiture is being developed. On public administration, there is currently an evaluation of the functionality of the ministries, and the Commission’s condition is that this evaluation should be completed and a public administration reform takes place”, Iulian Groza, executive director of IPRE, said during a talk show on Radio Moldova.
Adrian Băluțel, State Chancellery Secretary, said that while most of the recommendations yet to be fulfilled concern autonomous institutions, the Government seeks to provide them all the support needed.
“On some aspects, indeed, there is still a lot of work to be done. The justice reform and the fight against corruption are not necessarily matters that fall within the Government’s jurisdiction, but rather that of the NAC, the Anticorruption Prosecutor’s Office, the Prosecutor General’s Office. However, the Government does get to answer for this lack of progress. Therefore, in the coming months we will have a close dialogue with these institutions, and also with the Competition Council, on de-oligarchization issues, to see how the Government can intervene to grant them more powers and resources. The Government wants to provide all the necessary instruments so that these nine recommendations of the European Commission can be implemented by all the concerned institutions”, said Băluțel.
In October, the European Commission will present a report on the progress made by Moldova in implementing the nine recommendations. Based on this report, the member states will decide whether or not the European Union will start accession negotiations with Chisinau.
