The Moldovan authorities made progress in adopting laws for coming closer to the EU, but these laws are not implemented. The Analytical Center “Expert-Grup” and the Association for Participatory Democracy (ADEPT) monitored the implementation of reforms in justice and the political and economic spheres in the third quarter of this year and established that there are a number of problems that undermine the achieved results, IPN reports.

ADEPT executive director Igor Botan told a news conference that in the monitored period progress was made in implementing the reform of the justice sector, which is the most painful, according to him. The Ministry of Justice said that 60% of the provisions of the plan of action for 2011-2016 have been carried out until now. Igor Botan said that problems appeared concerning the transfer of judges in the period.

As to the reform of the Prosecutor’s Office, Igor Botan considers that it now follows only the way set by the agreement on the creation of the government coalition. The reform in the area of combating of corruption is done at a normal pace. Referring to the Transnistrian conflict, the expert said that a number of challenges were witnessed in the Security Zone in the first half of this year, but they didn’t repeat. However, no significant progress was made as the Transnistrian side does not want to discuss political and security issues.

ADEPT expert Polina Panainte said a positive development was seen in the area of human rights protection in the monitored period. The number of cases of torture and inhuman treatment decreased, but a negative aspect is that these practices didn’t disappear. There were yet cases of undermining the mass media. Some of the journalists were threatened to keep silent. The situation in the area of accidents at work that result in death also didn’t improve.

“Expert-Grup” executive director Adrian Lupusor said the dialogue with the International Monetary Fund and the additional share issue at Banca de Economii that led to the diminution of the state-owned shareholding from 56% to 33% are among the shortcomings.

Denis Cenusa, of “Expert-Grup”, said the problems in the relations with Russia in the monitored period showed that Moldova didn’t yet manage to ensure a good quality of its agrifood products exported to this country. The authorities also do not appropriately communicate with the mass media and this led to the worsening of the situation as regards Russia’s ban on the imports of Moldovan wine.

The monitoring is a joint project of “Expert-Grup” and ADEPT initiated in 2006. It is financially supported by Soros Foundation Moldova. The monitoring results made public on October 8 refer to the period between July and September 2013.