Activity of the Parliament on March 7 – April 3, 2005

On March 24, 2005 the Parliament of the XVI legislature convened for its first session. Parliamentary factions were established during that session, Chair of the Parliament was elected and the “Declaration of political partnership in achieving the objective of EU accession” was approved. One week later, Parliament elected one of the Deputy Chairs of the Parliament, approved the membership of the Permanent Bureau of the Parliament and designated leaders of the parliamentary commissions.

Parliamentary factions

During the first session of the newly-elected Parliament parliamentary factions were established. Surprisingly, Moldova Democrata Bloc split into two factions, and together with the Communist faction and that of the Christian-Democrats a total of four were established. Democratic Party broke away from the Moldova Democrata Bloc (MDB) that brought them to Parliament. Consequently, Communist factions holds 56 mandates, Moldova Democrata — 26, Christian-Democrats — 11, and Moldova Democrata — 8. Dumitru Diacov, leader of the Democratic Party explained that the breakaway did not mean refusal to cooperate with Moldova Democrata, but rather that the former had “its own message” and that via his own factions he would be able to better promote social-democratic positions. MDB dubbed the move as “a consequence of political corruption” and “political betrayal”.

Finally on April 4, prior to the election of the President of the country, Social-Liberals declared they also left the MDB. Therefore the latter were left with only 23 deputies.

Parliament leadership

Speaker

Marian Lupu, former Minister of Economy, who run for Parliament on the Communist party list, was elected as the Speaker of the Parliament of the XVI legislature. He was elected with 65 votes against 24 votes, while Christian Democrats refrained from voting. Marian pledged to be the Speaker for all the deputies.

Deputy Speaker

On March 31, Maria Postoico was elected Deputy Speaker with 76 votes. Opposition postponed designation of their deputy Speaker for a later date. Allegedly, the factions that were the most cooperative with the Party of Communists would get the much coveted position. It is known for a fact that Moldova Noastra faction would like to designate Dumitru Braghis.

Permanent Bureau

On March 31, the Permanent Bureau of the Parliament was elected including: Marian Lupu, Maria Postoico, Eugenia Ostapciuc, Victor Stepaniuc, Vladimir Eremciuc and Ivan Calin (Party of Communists of the Republic of Moldova), Serafim Urechean, Dumitru Braghis and Oleg Serebrian (MDB [currently Moldova Noastra]), Iurie Rosca (CDPP) and Dumitru Diacov (Moldova Democrata). After April 4, Serebrian would represent the Socio-Liberal group.

Parliamentary commissions

After consultations held by Speaker Lupu with the Permanent Bureau the representation quota for each faction in parliamentary commissions was established, while the plenary session approved the membership of the commissions, as follows:

No	Parliamentary commission	Chairperson	Faction
1.	Legal commission for appointments and immunity	Vladimir Turcan	Communist
2.	Commission for economy, budget and finances	Nicolae Bondarciuc	Communist
3.	Commission for national security, defence and public order	Iurie Stoicov	Communist
4.	Commission for foreign policy and European integration	Sergiu Stati	Communist
5.	Commission for culture, science, youth, sports, and media	Victor Stepaniuc	Communist
6.	Commission for local government, environment and territory planning	Veaceslav Untila	MDB (currently AMN)
7.	Commission for agriculture and food industry	Valeriu Cosarciuc	MDB (currently AMN)
8.	Commission for human rights	Stefan Secareanu	CDPP
9.	Commission for social protection and healthcare	Valentina Buliga	DPM

Right step

On the first day of its activity Parliament unanimously approved the Declaration of political partnership for achieving the objectives of accession to EU^[1]. The document provides for the consensus of the four factions on the consistent and irreversible promotion of the strategic course towards European accession. Deputies pledged to undertake joint actions to enforce the Action Plan EU — Moldova, to peacefully and democratically resolve Transdniestrian conflict, to ensure stability of democratic institutions, to ensure independence of the judiciary system, to fight corruption, to foster mass media, to observe the rights of national minorities, to contribute to social development, poverty reduction, improve investment climate and full-fledged development of the state language.

As for the Transdniestrian conflict, the document provides for the resolution of the conflict in line with the Constitution of the Republic of Moldova and international norms in close cooperation with OSCE, EU, Romania, Russia, US and Ukraine following the “3D” formula — democratization, demilitarization and decriminalization of Transdniestria.

↑ Moldova suverana, no. 51 (20688), 29 March 2005.

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