Monitoring→Politics→Foreign Affairs

Moldovan — Azerbaijan bilateral relations

Azerbaijan President, Iliham Aliev flew to Chisinau one day prior to the GUUAM Summit to meet his Moldovan counterpart, Parliament leadership and Prime-Minister Tarlev. During the meeting the Two Presidents talked cooperation within UN in view of fighting secessionism, as well as opening their embassies in each others countries.

Following the meeting five bilateral agreements were signed on labor and social security, IT, airspace, audiovisual, and a sanitary-veterinary convention.

During his meeting with Moldovan legislators President Aliev pointed the importance of capitalizing on the 35 existing bilateral agreements and boosting inter-parliamentary ties between Moldovan and Azerbaijan legislators.

GUUAM Summit

On April 22, Chisinau hosted one of the most important events of the year in foreign policy, namely GUUAM Summit. Besides President Voronin, other top official present at the Summit included: Georgian President Mihail Saakashvili; Ukraine’s Victor Yushcenko, Azerbaijan’ Iliham Aliev, Romania’s Traian Basescu and Lithuania’s Valdas Adamkus — the last two as observers. An US delegation headed by Stiven Mann of the Eurasia State Department was also present, as was an OSCE delegation headed by OSCE Secretary General Jan Kubis, and a number of foreign ambassadors accredited to Moldova. Despite all the organizers’ efforts, Uzbekistan President was absent, as were the Presidents of Bulgaria and Poland, the latter two invited as observers.

President Voronin inaugurated the Summit then gave the floor to the Presidents of GUUAM member countries, who called on reviving and reorganizing its structure. The following ideas are worth citing:

• Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin referred to the joint efforts to be undertaken in view of fighting phenomena that threaten regional security on the European continent; market liberalization and approaching WTO standards; importance of complying with European standards on free trade, circulation of people, capital and services; talked of revising cooperation as regards customs, border, financial-banking sector, labor market and migration; proposed resuming talks on energy security; boosting cooperation in such areas as tourism, IT and infrastructure.
• Georgian President, Mihail Saakashvili talked of the European character of the GUUAM member countries and of the need to have a joint course towards EU; proposed to sign a joint declaration on Belarus in support of democracy in that country; proposed hosting an international conference in Yalta to talk GUUAM enlargement.
• Ukrainian President Victor Yushcenko proposed establishing a Parliamentary Assembly and consolidating GUUAM; bolstering cooperation in line with three principles: democratization, security, and economic cooperation; launched the initiative of signing a free trade agreement between GUUAM member states. Finally, he presented the seven principles for settling Transdniestrian conflict.
• Azerbaijan President, Iliham Aliev expressed his strong belief that GUUAM would morph into a major force in Balkans and Black Sea region; and was pleased that common grounds for the settlement of conflicts in the region had been identified.

Hence it is worth mentioning President Basescu’s speech. He referred to security issues in the Black Sea region and proposed GUUAM to develop a long-term strategy so as to secure stability in the region in line with EU principles. Referring to the conflicts in the region, Basescu indicated that they might be only settled by observing the constitutions of the GUUAM member states and in compliance with local autonomy principle, rather that by means of federalization.

Moldova took over the presidency of GUUAM from Georgia. Referring to the priorities throughout Moldova’s presidency, Vladimir Voronin mentioned securing GUUAM region and ensuring stability in the region, by means of closer ties with EU and US.

At the end of the Summit a joint Declaration on democracy, development and stability and a Joint Declaration of the Presidents of Azerbaijan, Georgia, Lithuania, Moldova, Romania and Ukraine “Promoting democracy from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea” were signed.

Moldovan — Lithuanian bilateral ties

Moldovan and Lithuanian Presidents had a separate meeting and talked closer bilateral ties, interest to open diplomatic missions in each others countries. The two countries signed an Agreement on easing visa regime providing that Moldovan citizens would get a visa free of charge with no invitation being required, while Lithuanian citizens would travel to Moldova with their passport.

“Moldova and Europe: consolidating ties” conference

On April 26, Association for South-Eastern Europe from Germany and Institute for Public Policies hosted a conference in Chisinau, with the financial support of German Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Stability Pact for Southeastern Europe. The conference sought to draw EU’s attention to the gap between limited capacity of Moldova and major objectives outlined in the Action Plan EU-Moldova as well as towards Transdniestrian conflict.

The conference gathered academia and civil society from Moldova, Germany, Romania and Ukraine. Among the notorious personalities present at the event one might mention: President Vladimir Voronin; Chair of the Bundestag Foreign Affairs Commission Volker Ruehe; IMF negotiator on Moldova Thomas Richardson; Special Coordinator for the Stability Pact for Southeastern Europe, Erhard Busek; German Ambassador to Moldova Wolfgang Lerke etc.

In his inauguration speech President Voronin mentioned that Moldova saw EU’ Neighborhood policy as an intermediary stage towards accession to EU. The first stage would be to obtain upon enforcing the Action Plan a new status for relations between Moldova and EU. Given the high number of European officials gathered at the event, President Voronin asked for their assistance in modernizing Moldova.

Archive

2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003

 

© 2001–2018 Association for Participatory Democracy “ADEPT”
Phone/Fax: (373 22) 21-29-92, e-mail:
Reproduction of the materials is welcomed provided the source is indicated

Created by NeoNet