The localities in the Republic of Moldova have enormous potential to reach a European development level and some of them already managed to do this, expert of the Institute for Development and Social Initiatives “Viitorul” Viorel Chivriga stated in a public debate hosted by IPN.

Viorel Chivriga noted that the tenures of the mayors and councilors elected on November 5 will not be easy and these will have to cope with new standards and to have development views for each village or town. “We have 898 mayor’s offices in the country and have a considerable number of local, municipal councils. These are actually now in the epicenter, following the local elections. But they are fully different. There are experienced persons who had discussions with people, have a clear view on how the locality should look like in a year, in two or ten years. There are also persons who know how this should look like in even 50 years. These are persons who are really in their place. But there are also accidental persons. A lot of people were proposed to key posts by particular clans and we must say this openly,” stated Viorel Chivriga.

According to him, some of the villages and towns in the Republic of Moldova swiftly change to the better. Moreover, we have European villages. There are Moldovan villages that are more modern than some of the villages in Hungary, for example, on the border with Ukraine. So, things are relative, but there are possibilities here to advance quickly due to the existence of experience. I know localities with which we worked within the UNDP and these swiftly solved the local problems related namely to infrastructure. An implemented project already generates experience that helps the locals, the mayor’s office. If this experience is borrowed from another mayor’s office, there is a chain within which the experience circulates,” said the expert.

Viorel Chivriga noted it is important that these projects produce tangible results, have continuity and sustainability. “If we speak about Europeanization, this is not a process that lasts for a day or two. One should permanently discuss, explain, show,” he stated.

The public debate entitled “Local elections in the context of European course” was staged by IPN News Agency in the framework of the project “Stimulation of discussion in the mass media about traditional particularities of local elections and the need for Europeanization” which is supported by Soros Foundation Moldova.