European officials urge Moldovan authorities to keep on furthering democratic institutions

European officials urge Moldovan authorities to persist in the process of developing democratic institutions. The progress registered in the EU-Moldova dialogue, as well as the initiation of the EU-Moldova agreements on facilitating visas issuance and readmission of the illegal immigrants have been outlined within the IX reunion of the EU- Moldova cooperation, held in Luxembourg. The reunion’s agenda included a number of matters relating to the present state of the EU-Moldova cooperation relations, including the Action Plan Implementation, EU Mission’s assistance activity at the Moldovan-Ukrainian border and issues related to the border management. An informal meeting on the Transnistrian issue has been also held within the reunion. Minister of Economy and Trade Igor Dodon and Minister of Justice Vitalie Pirlog took part in the meeting on Moldova’s behalf. The EU was represented by Federal Minister of Foreign Affairs of Germany, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, incumbent president of the Council of Ministers of the EU; Director of the EU Department for Eastern Europe, Southern Caucasus and Central Asia, Hugues Migarelli; special EU representative for Moldova, Kalman Miszei. Within the news conference held at the end of the reunion, the German Foreign Minister called attention to the fact that the initiation of the Agreement on facilitating visas issue and readmission of the illegal immigrants, the decision to prolong the EUBAM mandate; the negotiations on obtaining autonomous commercial preferences created important premises for intensifying the EU-Moldova cooperation. Referring to the Transnistrian issue, Frank-Walter Steinmeier outlined that EU is interested in identifying a clear political solution for the Transnistrian conflict in the “5+2” format. Asked to comment on the initiative on transforming the format of the peace keeping forces mission in the Transnistrian region, Vladimir Voronin pointed out that the so-called format of the peace keeping mission, kept since 1992, is outdated, as all the goals set up within it have been achieved. “We don’t need military mediators, so Moldova is pleading for replacing the peace keeping mission by civil observers under international mandate. As a neutral state, Moldova is not willing to replace the military forces by other military forces and, furthermore, the present state of the conflict proves that the presence of civil observers will be just enough”, Vladimir Voronin concluded.