Moldovan Parliament to enjoy assistance in first EC-funded Twinning Program

The first Twinning Program granted to Moldova by the European Commission – called “Supporting the Parliament of the Republic of Moldova” -- was launched on Wednesday in Chisinau, Info-Prim Neo reports. The project is implemented by the French Parliament and the Hungarian Parliament. “Twinning means becoming brothers in English. From now on this is how the relationships of the Moldovan Parliament with the French and Hungarian Parliaments will be defined,” Moldovan Speaker Marian Lupu stated at the opening ceremony. “I'm confident the Moldova-EU partnership will get to be a brotherly partnership in the near future,” the speaker has said. The project is meant to contribute to strengthen democracy and the state of law, and to approximating the Moldovan laws and standards to the ones of the EU. The project provides for training and fact-finding visits. The activities will envisage four areas: support to the process of reorganization of the parliamentary staff, strengthening the Parliament's capacity in the field of approximation of Moldovan legislation to EU norms and standards, regulatory impact assessment, strengthening the control function of the Parliament on the Government. “Over 50 experts will visit Moldova the coming 24 months for 45 activities. A civil servant from the Hungarian Parliament will stay in Chisinau for the whole duration of the project to coordinate the organization of events and to provide consulting to the Moldovan authorities,” said the Hungarian Parliament's speaker, Katalin Szili. The chairman of the group of friendship with Moldova of the French National Assembly, Claude Greff, has insured that both chambers firmly appreciate this joint project. The project is fully financed by the European Commission which made available 1 million euros for this purpose. “This project is an excellent opportunity for the European Union to show it backs Moldova on the way of European integration,” Cesare de Montis, the Head of the Delegation of the European Commission to Moldova, stated. The twinnings are an instrument which has been initially designed by the European Commission in order to help candidate countries to accession to acquire the necessary skills and experience in the field of EU legislation. The Twinnings have been later extended to the countries included in the European Neighborhood Policy and it became available for Moldova, as well. The project supporting the Moldovan Parliament is the first in a range of Twinning projects now being developed for such areas as judiciary, competition, intellectual property rights, public procurement, norms and standards for agricultural products. All of them should be launched by 2009.