The Foreign Policy Association (APE) will stage the third EU – Moldova Forum on June 19-20. In a news conference at IPN, APE director Victor Chirila said that Balti town was selected for housing the forum this time in order to transmit a message to the whole society: the European integration covers not only Chisinau. “It is important to have an open dialogue with the people from all over the country, to understand what this process means and what we should do for the benefits provided by the EU to be real and to be felt by everyone,” stated Victor Chirila.
The event will involve over 150 invitees. There will be present a large delegation from Germany headed by Federal Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development Gerd Mueller as well as officials, experts from Poland, Romania and other states. The forum will start with speeches by Prime Minister Iurie Leanca and Head of Parliament Igor Corman. A Moldovan – German development assistance agreement will be signed on the first day.
The event will be divided into seven sessions. The Head of the EU Delegation to Moldova Pirkka Tapiola will open the first session where there will be discussed the relations between the EU and Moldova, the political association and the European prospects. The session will be attended by Romanian Senator Mircea Geoana, Polish Sejm member Andrzej Halicki, and vice chairwoman of the Finance Committee of Poland Beata Szydlo.
In the second session the same day, Minister of Economy Valeriu Lazar, Minister of Agriculture Vasile Bumacov, and former Premier Ion Sturza will discuss the benefits of the Free Trade Area for the people.
The third session the second day will center on the visibility of the European integration: EU assistance and projects in Moldova. The session will be attended by Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and European Integration Iulian Groza, Mayor of Chisinau Dorin Chirtoaca, member of the Poland’s Parliamentary Infrastructure Committee Jozef Lasota and others.
The justice sector reform, fight against corruption and improvement of transparency will be discussed in the fourth session that will involve Minister of Justice Oleg Efrim, Prosecutor General Corneliu Gurin, vice director of the National Anticorruption Center Cristina Tarna, associate researcher of the Institute for Development and International Relations of Croatia Hrvoje Butkovic and other experts.
Speeches in the fifth session, which will focus on the strategy for implementing the Association Agreement with the EU, will be given by chairman of the Liberal Democratic Party Vlad Filat and leader of the Democratic Party Marian Lupu. Deputy Prime Minister for Reintegration Eugen Carpov, deputy head of the Foreign Affairs Committee of Poland’s Senate Tadeusz Iwinski and other participants will discuss the settlement of the Transnistrian conflict in the sixth session. In the last session, centering on the market economy reforms as a motivation for investors, will involve experts of the European Investment Bank, the World Bank Office in Moldova and of other institutions.
The forum is organized in partnership with the Institute of Eastern Studies of Warsaw and the Bucharest-based Romanian Center for European Policies. The first forum of the kind was held in Chisinau, while the second in Berlin.
In the same news conference, Victor Chirila presented the conclusions and recommendations of the study “Is the European Integration of the Republic of Moldova Irreversible?”. One of the conclusions of the study is that Moldova will have to mobilize society, the political class, the institutional and financial resources in order to ensure the internal and external conditions needed for implementing the Association Agreement. There must be a well-defined goal that will unite the political class and society, a functional parliamentary majority, a functional Government and support on behalf of the partners.
The APE director said that the period that remained until the end of this year will not be an easy one as several important events for the country will take place, including the signing of the Association Agreement, its ratification and the parliamentary elections. In such circumstances, there may be political forces that will want to destabilize the situation in the country and these forces are not necessarily external, but rather internal. That’s why the political class must be as united as possible, for the sake of Moldova’s European course.
