“We build things the past few years so that this process of improving people’s lives we initiated becomes irreversible, if the country is managed by a government with people who know to obtain economic progress,” Prime Minister Pavel Filip stated from the Parliament’s rostrum, presenting the Government’s report for 2016-2018. The Premier said that if all the previous governments has repaired by at least 1,600 km of roads a year and helped at least 1,000 families to buy a house, would have raised the pensions by up to 40%, food allowances for students seven times and salaries by 50%, as the current government did, today the Republic of Moldova would have looked differently. Pavel Filip also said the good things should be continued in 2019, IPN reports.

“When I took over the Government at the start of 2016, I ascertained that, regrettably, in some of the areas the taken actions were chaotic, sporadic and without vision. The artificial reforms resulted in inequity in salaries and pensions, lack of jobs, migration abroad, damaged roads, medical services of a poor quality, a difficult and inefficient institutional system, a business environment suffocated by the abuses of some of the functionaries and, which was probably the most serious thing, a banking sector close to collapse, which could have affected the economic stability of our country in the long run,” stated the Premier.

According to Pavel Filip, in such conditions it was decided to implement profound reforms that would fully change particular systems. “I was aware that from political viewpoint these do not bring immediate results and generate resistance in the system. However, we aimed to lay solid foundations as we want a construction that would last. This way 2016 was the year when we overcame the crisis and stabilized the country economically. In 2017 we did reforms and brought things in order and ensured equity in particular areas. These efforts enabled us in 2018 to start to build, to increase the pensions and salaries and to build good roads, to purchase ambulances and to help the young people buy homes. In 2019 the good things should be continued,” noted the Premier.

As regards the external relations, the Prime Minister said the Association Agreement with the European Union continues to be the Republic of Moldova’s main roadmap, while the entry into the EU is the only option. “I said this for numerous times and I’m firmly convinced that there are no other courses we should follow. We want yet to build, together with the member countries, not only European parties, but rather a European country here, at home, with European living standards and European citizens. We have excellent relations with our neighborhood in Bucharest and Kiev. In a common meeting of the governments recently, we discussed common projects to interconnect the infrastructure with the executive in Bucharest and agreed to create a common and closely interconnected infrastructure in communication, transport, energy, security, education, environment and culture” stated Pavel Filip.

As to the justice sector, the Prime Minister said that even if a number of important laws were adopted, the recent developments showed it is an area where a lot of work is yet to be done. Serious analyses will be made together with the development partners and experts in the field so as to understand why these important legislative changes haven’t yet produced the expected effect. “Also, the change of mentality and attitude among state functionaries and citizens is an area where I think more work is to be done so that we all understand that no one will solve our problems and will work instead of us. The way in which this country will look like depends on each of us,” he noted.

The Government’s report was examined in the absence of the opposition MPs. The MPs of the Liberal Democratic Party, the Liberal Party and the Party of Communists left the assembly hall of Parliament before the presentation of the report. Pavel Filip said if it had been a report with place for criticism, the assembly hall would have been definitely full of representatives of the opposition.