MAE suggests Moldova should withdraw from CIS

The European Action Movement (MAE) considers that Moldova should file an application and withdraw from the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) because the country's strategic objective is the Euro-Atlantic integration. In a statement, the MAE says that the application must be lodged when Moldova hands over the CIS presidency to Russia at the CIS summit set to take place in Chisinau on October 8 and 9, Info-Prim Neo reports. “We consider that Moldova's presence in the CIS hinders the European integration process. The Commonwealth was created with the aim of saving the former Soviet Empire that fell apart in 1991. But the projects approved by this organization have not been implemented, while its mechanisms are amorphous. Only the bilateral cooperation between the member states are viable inside the CIS,” says the statement signed by the MAE leader Anatol Petrencu. The MAE expressed its concern about the fact that some of the political parties that entered the Parliament after the July 29 elections plead for remaining part of the CIS, while other post-communist countries became already members of the EU. “Moldova's membership in the CIS is an obstacle to the European integration. This duplicitous and inconsistent policy arouses the Western partners' distrust. Our relations with the CIS states must be based on reciprocal advantages and mutual respect,” the statement reads. Anatol Petrencu considers that the CIS and the EU are two distinct organizations and Moldova will ultimately have to choose which one it wants to be part of. “We ask the new executive to remove the barbed wire at Moldova's border with Romania, which is a symbol of cold war. We ask the Filat Government to abandon the idea of signing a bilateral Basic Treaty with Romania as this is an outdated communist conception and to sign a twinning and European integration treaty,” the political organization says. The MAE calls on the Moldovan people to actively particulate in debates on this subject. It says it will hold meetings and pickets in support of this idea while the CIS summit will take place in Chisinau.