The projects of the Partnership for Good Governance that are financed by the European Union and co-financed and implemented by the Council of Europe will continue as of next year. In an event on October 9, there were presented the results of the projects implemented during 2015-2018, IPN reports.
The Head of the Council of Europe Office in Chisinau William Massolin said it is a complex partnership that is 90% financed by the EU. The program that covers a number of thematic areas is implemented in the Eastern Partnership countries, including Moldova. The priorities for the second phase of the partnership will be agreed today.
Head of Operations Section at the EU Delegation in Moldova Marco Gremmer said the Partnership includes a number of projects that were either completed recently or are close to completion. When the partnership was launched, the expectations were high and they remain as such. European expertise is provided in a number of areas, including the consolidation of efficiency of the justice system, prevention and combating of discrimination, promotion of human rights, etc. These areas are a precondition for Moldova to advance so that everyone could later benefit from opportunities.
Attending the event, the representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and European Integration Petru Alexei, national coordinator of the Partnership, said that after three years of implementation this instrument proved its utility. “As regards the implementation of the Partnership for Good Governance, we can now speak about a larger number of concrete results for the final beneficiaries that are visible nationwide,” he stated.
Pilar Morales, department head at the Council of Europe, said the objective of the Partnership was to offer assistance to the EaP member states, including Moldova, so that these do national reforms in the fields of human rights, the rule of law, democracy. In addition to the 14 regional projects, there were implemented four projects typical of Moldova and the total budget of these is almost €2 million.
Among the achieved results is the support offered to the Council for Prevention and Elimination of Discrimination and Ensuring Equality that now has a communication strategy and a plan of action for implanting this. There were also staged activities to support the profession of lawyer by sharing the CoE expertise, high-quality training courses and integrated transfer of knowledge, etc. As to cooperation in the field of elections, there were produced two guides on the use of international electoral standards in Romanian and 300 copies of these were distributed to civil society organizations involved in election monitoring.
The Partnership for Good Governance will continue as from 2019 and will focus on the justice sector reform and combating of money laundering, plus the fighting of cybercrime.
