Almost a month after the participants in the second Civic Forum put forward a number of demands to the government, nothing has changed as the authorities ignored the demands and only simulated a dialogue. The representatives of the Civic Forum consider that the government didn’t initiate a real platform for discussions with civil society and simulated a series of actions in a move to make the people and the European partners believe that it is ready to do reforms.
Head of the Center “Pro dialog” Lilia Snegureac, in a news conference at IPN, said the authorities assured the European partners that they initiated a dialogue with civil society, this dialogue was very truncated. The government showed inability to start a dialogue with civil society during a month after the Civic Forum and to do concrete reforms.
Director of the Institute for Public Policy Arcadie Barbarosie stated that the demands formulated by the Civic Forum coincide with the conditions imposed by the foreign donors and development partners. These demands were to be met as a matter of urgency, but the government in the period only simulated some reforms. The government also didn’t satisfy the demand to de-monopolize the media sector. The recently adopted provisions that allow a person to hold only two broadcast licenses represent a cynic violation of the promises made by the government given that those who already hold licenses can keep them until these expire.
The members of the Civic Forum consider the demand to unconditionally set free the Petrenco group wasn’t fulfilled by the government, even if these were placed under house arrest. Analyst Alexei Tulbure said this decision, which was taken the day two EU Senior Officials arrived in Chisinau, was aimed at creating good impressions to the foreign partners. By the decisions referring to the Petrenco group, the authorities defy the law and threaten the protesters.
According to the members of the Civic Forum, the registration of the Political Party “Platform Dignity and Truth” by the Ministry of Justice was one of the demands that was met by the authorities. The party’s leader Andrei Nastase said the Ministry was to register the party within 15 days given that all the necessary documents were presented, but this happened only after 50 days.
The representatives of the Civic Forum put forward a number of demands to the government, including to amend the legislation on the banking sector, to adopt the package of laws on integrity following the second meeting of January 29, to appoint the National Bank governor and to dismiss a number of heads of rule of law institutions. The demands were to be satisfied within 30 days.
