Parliamentary factions inform PACE chairman of Moldova's arrears in honoring commitments before CoE

Moldovan parliamentary factions have informed the chairman of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), Lluis Maria de Puig, about Moldova's arrears in honoring its commitments before the Council of Europe in areas as the press freedom, the reform of the judiciary and the preparation for the 2009 parliamentary elections. The PACE chairman is for the first time on an official trip to Moldova, to end by July 9. He met the heads of parliamentary factions on July 7, as the media were not allowed to the reunions. Asked by Info-Prim Neo, the faction leader of the Christian-Democratic People's Party (PPCD), Vlad Cubreacov, has said they discussed issues as the need to withdraw the Russian troops from eastern Moldova, the situation of those 50,000 Romanian speaking children from Transnistria who cannot study in their mother tongue with Latin letters, the issue of the local un-privatized media, the higher electoral threshold and the interdiction to form electoral blocs, forbidding the people with dual citizenship to accede to public offices, etc. They have also discussed about the role and the place of the procuratura (prosecutor's office) within a democratic society, this being one of the commitments Moldova assumed in 1995 when it joined the Council of Europe (CoE), the only commitment still not honored, Vlad Cubreacov has said. They also discussed about the preparation for the 2009 parliamentary elections and the possibility of curbing Moldova's being monitored by the CoE after the 2009 elections, on condition Moldova honors all the assumed responsibilities and obligations. According to Vlad Cubreacov, the PACE chairman expressed his concern for those issues, underlining the progress Moldova had made in legal terms, adjusting its domestic law to the CoE norms, but showed there are discrepancies between the legal provisions and the practice lagging behind. The leader of the Democratic Party faction, Dumitru Diacov, has told Info-Prim Neo he discussed with Lluis Maria de Puig about the fact that it is necessary that Moldova makes an effort and fulfills all the commitments it assumed in 1995 and later. “The present government assumed commitments on numerous occasions and they depend on the Government, especially such areas as the reform of the judiciary and the of the procuratura,” Dumitru Diacov said. They broached the situation of media, of the judiciary, the relationships between the government and the opposition, the Transnistrian conflict, the poverty, the arrears in implementing the Moldova-EU Action Plan, etc. Dumitru Diacov pointed out that the rulers should insure equal conditions for all the political parties to run in the electoral race, to have access to information and public media. “This is an absolutely necessary condition to maintain the balance in the country after the poll, since the pre-electoral campaign has repercussions over the post-electoral period,” the PDM leader has said. The president of Moldova Noastra Alliance (AMN), Serafim Urecheanu, has said he told the PACE chairman about the huge arrears in carrying out the commitments assumed before the CoE, about the drawbacks in developing the economy. “People are impelled by ravaging poverty to leave their country, as their number spilled over one million, while the remittances weigh 35% in the GDP,” Urecheanu has said. The AMN leader says the life standard has worsened during the years of Communist rule as the political instability is more and more obvious: “in statements, we're advancing, adopting laws not so bad, but, in general, in terms of accomplishments we have very many arrears.” In the same context, Serafim Urecheanu informed the European official about the arrears in the judiciary and the reform of broadcasting, about the fact the Communist rulers practically control all the media, about the “illegal” privatization of the stations Euro TV and Radio Antena C, which were shared among the Christian-Democrats and the Communists. The AMN leader has also complained about the Central authorities interfering with local administrations in Chisinau and Comrat, and, together with the PPCD, in all the districts run by representatives of democratic parties. The faction leader of the Communist Party, Eugenia Ostapciuc, has declined to make statements about her meeting with the PACE chairman, for Info-Prim Neo, invoking a loaded agenda.