Monitoring→Politics→Foreign Affairs

The Republic of Moldova — Council of Europe

• The Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe (CoE) has raised concern with the late complete execution of the 2001 ECHR judgment on the Metropolitan Church of Bessarabia vs Moldovan Government case. Although the Metropolitan Church of Bessarabia was registered after the ECHR judgment, the CoE considers that the authorities did not execute the entire judgment in terms of modification of legislation on religious freedom, with the purpose to avoid violations of the European Convention on Human Rights in future. The Committee of Ministers considers that the Moldovan legislation continues to offer a discretion to the government as regards the awarding, suspension or withdrawal of recognition of religious nominations and recommends the Moldovan authorities to speed up the adoption of a new law on religious dominations by taking into account the conclusions and recommendations of CoE experts. The Committee of Ministers will meet again in late March and will examine the stage of implementation of its recommendations, so that the Parliament should adopt and the President of the country should promulgate a new law on religious dominations in compliance with the CoE recommendations until then.

• The Republic of Moldova was obliged to pay material, moral compensations, juridical spending of over 345,000 euros in 24 trials that it has lost since its entry in the CoE and start of examination of appeals by ECHR. Most of judgments were passed in 2004–2005, and they envisage the unfair execution or execution of judgments of national courts in a longer term. Knowledgeable sources said that Moldova was sued in 151 cases until now and about half of them are related to non-execution of judgments.

The Republic of Moldova — European Union

• The Republic of Moldova has started negotiations with the E.U. regarding the inclusion in the list of beneficiaries of the Autonomous Trade Preferences of E.U. The general conditions needed to be fulfilled by Moldova in order to benefit of this regime will be established during negotiations and the attributions for issuing and management of origin certificates for exportation of products to the E.U. will be delimited. The Autonomous Trade Preferences regime has an increased level of liberalisation of exports to the European community and the E.U. can award it unilaterally.

• Franco Frattini, E.U, commissioner for justice, freedom and security, said that the European Commission is highly appreciating the stage of implementation of the Moldova-E.U. Action Plan, the dialogue on legal problems and interior affairs. According to the European official, the migration is one of problems that require more attention from Moldovan authorities and negotiations on visa regime will be possible after a solution to this issue.

The Republic of Moldova — Romania

• The Romanian mass media reported that the Foreign Ministry of Romania has drafted an action plan on introduction of visa regime for Moldova on January 1, 2007. According to the preliminary plan, the visa regime will bring a series of facilities: awarding of visa for very short terms, no consular fees, on basis of a minimal number of documents. Visa for maximum one year will be awarded to students, teachers, participants in cultural events, transporters and businessmen. Visa for large companies will be issued for maximum five years.

• The Romanian authorities do not have a clear stance on the process of awarding of Romanian citizenship to Moldovan citizens. Now the citizenship awarding procedure rests with the competence of the Justice Ministry, which has received at least 20,000 applications for citizenship, but it does not examine them for a very long time , with applicants waiting more than three years. No clear arguments on perpetuation of this situation have been officially unveiled, hinting that the rapid regaining of citizenship by Moldovans would halt Romania’s entry in the E.U., but these affirmations lack a legal ground.

• The Chisinau authorities say that the modification of trade rules between Moldova and Romania in connection with the entry of the latter in the E.U. and suspension of the bilateral free exchange agreement will not reduce the circuit of goods between the two countries very much. The Ministry of Economy and Trade considers that about 75 percent of Moldovan goods could be exported to Romania under conditions close to the ones of the free exchange agreement due to Moldova’s inclusion in the European system GSP-plus. The circuit of goods between Moldova and Romania exceeded 340 million dollars last year, with Romania registering a positive balance of 140 million dollars.

The Republic of Moldova — Russian Federation

• Russian Defence Minister Sergey Ivanov said that the Russian peacekeeping forces in Transnistria represent an element of stability for this region, since none of the sides involved in the Transnistrian crisis assumed any responsibility. He delivered such a statement to the security conference in Munchen, Germany, which has debated the problem of ratification of the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty.

• Another Russian official, the deputy secretary of the Russian Security Council, Yuri Zubakov, said that Russian peacekeepers “exert their mission with dignity and we must think well about the need to change the format, so that not to run riot.” The Transnistrian media has quoted Zubakov as saying that Chisinau’s initiative to modify the format of peacekeeping operation “must be examined with maximal caution.”

• The Moldovan authorities have promised to ensure the transit of electricity from the Moldovan Hydro-Power Station (CHM), which the Russian company Inter RAO EAS Rosii has recently bought, to the Balkan countries. A draft contract was already delivered to the Russian side and Minister of Industry and Infrastructure Vladimir Antosii said that the Moldovan side will “assist” the electricity transit process because CHM is unregistered with the competent bodies of Moldova and it does not hold certificates needed for conformity and customs declaration of exported product.

Moldova in the world

The Republic of Moldova and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have decided to sign a preliminary crediting agreement worth 117 million dollars overall. IMF mission head Thomas Richardson said that this credit will be released to the National Bank of Moldova for maintenance of the balance of payments and currency reserves of the state, with the purpose to ensure a macroeconomic stability. The IMF Board of Directors is to pass a final decision on this agreement next spring. The new credit of IMF is expected to be released under a preferential regime, for a 0.5-percent interest rate, for a 10-year period and a 5-year grace period, while the transfer of means in instalments will be preceded by periodical estimation of accomplishments of Moldova’s authorities. The resumption of the IMF financing is the main condition for restart of cooperation with other foreign financiers, with the Government targeting at many credits and grants that will be obtained by 2009. The previous programme with IMF was stopped in 2003.
The chairman of the parliamentary commission for foreign relations and European integration said that the Republic of Moldova will not participate in the CIS institute for monitoring of democratic development, consolidation of parliamentarism and respect for electoral right of citizens. This institute, which is being created in the CIS Interparliamentary Assembly, will have similar tasks as other international structures specialised in monitoring of elections, especially of the OSCE and CoE. Moldova did not invite CIS observers at the 2005 local and parliamentary elections, but it ratified the convention on standards of democratic elections, electoral rights and freedoms in CIS member states.

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