Lupu says he had to apologize to Biden for Communists' behavior

Speaker Marian Lupu told a televised show on M1 that he had to apologize to US Vice President Joe Biden when the representative of the Communist Party failed to appear at a meeting featuring parliamentary leaders held to welcome Biden during his one-day visit to Moldova on Friday. “Our meeting with Joe Biden was delayed by 10 minutes because we had to wait for the representative of the opposition to appear. When we eventually understood that the man was not going to show up, I personally apologized to Vice President Biden for the fact that not all the representatives of the parliamentary factions were present at the meeting”, said Lupu. Besides himself, Marian Lupu said that the deputy speakers, the leaders of all the parliamentary factions and the head of the Parliament's foreign affairs commission had been invited to take part in the meeting. As the Communist faction's leader declined the invitation, MP Iurie Muntean was supposed to participate instead, but he didn't show up. At the same show, Prime Minister Vlad Filat criticized the Communist Party for their interpretation of Biden's visit as a “humiliation for Moldova” and for trying to turn everything into unjustified propaganda, while ignoring the “national interests”. Earlier on Friday Iurie Muntean told Publika TV: “Vlad Filat behaved like an aborigine in a colony who welcomed a second-echelon official from the metropolis. The most humiliating thing for me to see was how he, as a Prime Minister, introduced (Joe Biden) while standing behind a tribune which displayed the United States Seal. That was totally out of place!” United States Vice President Joe Biden came to Chisinau for a one-day visit on March 11 to show support to Moldova's ongoing reforms.