The visit of the President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), Luis Maria de Puig to Chisinau last week precedes the closure of the summer session of the Moldovan Parliament and follows the closure of the summer session of the PACE. During the summer session on June 25, PACE adopted Resolution No. 1619 on the functioning of democratic institutions in Europe, which refers also to the state of affairs in Moldova. This document focuses on the situation in Moldova since the last resolution of October 2007. But it was passed over both by the legislature of Moldova and by the national media. The resolution is yet very important and interesting: it praises and criticizes simultaneously certain political forces. Actually, we can consider this resolution and the assessments of the PACE President as an intermediary evaluation of the output of the Moldovan Parliament. The visit to Moldova of the PACE President was a good occasion to directly transmit to the administration of Moldova, the Opposition parties and the society in general the message regarding the Council of Europe’s state of spirit as to the fulfillment of the commitments and to the progress made since October-November 2007. The meetings with leaders of political parties, municipal authorities and representatives of the civil society furnished new subjects and information about the situation in Moldova to PACE. The Parliamentary Assembly’s position was publicly reiterated in the speech delivered by Luis Maria de Puig in the Parliament of Moldova. We can emphasize several points from this speech. Firstly, the PACE President stressed that the reforms promised when joining the CE must be accelerated because Moldova’s fulfillment of its commitments has been monitored for 13 years! The Council of Europe, especially PACE, acknowledges of course the progress made in adopting certain legislative documents, but the situation has not changed enough to insure democratic stability. This means that Moldova is far from having fulfilled its commitments. The small progress is accompanied by such irregularities as: - stagnations in adopting laws, first of all the reform of the prosecutor’s office that stagnates; - regress, including in the electoral legislation, halt in the live broadcast of the legislature’s sittings, etc. The criticized areas constitute “the standard Moldovan package”: justice, freedom of expression, combating of corruption, administrative reform and the activity conditions of the municipalities, electoral aspects, reform of the prosecutor’s office. In other words, Strasbourg is expecting definitive solutions and not only positive dynamics. The 2009 parliamentary elections will be again supervised to see the progress made. The preparations for elections will be followed throughout the year, not only on election day. Referring to Moldova, paragraph 5.3 of Resolution No.1619 says that the electoral processes and reforms must have such minimum objectives as: - to reduce the electoral ceiling (“PACE regrets the recent decision by which the Moldovan Parliament raises the electoral ceiling to 6% for party lists”); - to create an efficient system for making complaints and appeals concerning the elections; - to create equal conditions for all the competing parties, including as regards the media coverage of the campaign, which must be unbiased and just; The recognition of the small results achieved comes to support and encourage the process of European integration and the territorial integrity of Moldova. The PACE President pointed to a new condition specified in Resolution No. 1619, as regards the monitoring of the preparation and holding of the 2009 parliamentary elections. Such a condition derives from the last legislative initiatives and amendments with such an impact, from the disseminated “success” of the Resolution of October 2007. Consequently, regardless of the speed and quality of the reforms that the Parliament will promote in 2008, Moldova does not have chances to close the monitoring of the basic commitments this year. At internal level, we can understand that the last legislative modifications concerning the elections (electoral code, transparency of public debates, quality of the election campaign, equal access to mass media etc.) have not brought stability to the democratic institutions. On the contrary, the monitoring will continue for the 14th year! The lower credibility of the national authorities in front of the citizens contributes to a greater importance (image) of the Council of Europe in Moldova and this strengthens the value of the messages sent by Luis Maria de Puig to the Moldovan authorities. His speech in the Moldovan Parliament insured that the same message is accurately communicated to the Parliament in general and the society, because the whole Parliament and not only a political party must adopt and make sure that the reforms are effectively and uniformly implemented.