Activity of the President on May 16–30, 2006

Decrees

Vladimir Voronin has signed a degree on awarding of the Labour Glory Order to Vasili Panciuc, mayor of the Balti municipality, for long and prodigious work in public administration bodies, contribution to promotion of reforms, intensive organisation activity.

The next day after participating in the inauguration of the stadium of the soccer club Zimbru, the chief of state has awarded the Honour Order to Nicolae Ciornii, honoured chairman of Zimbru club, for contributing to the building of the sport complex of the team.

The chief of state has awarded the Civil Merit medal to Moldovan Ambassador to Germany Igor Corman after a visit to Germany.

Vladimir Voronin signed a decree on May 19 on creation of the Cairo-based Moldovan Embassy to Egypt. The Government will establish the structure, staff and budget of this diplomatic mission.

Sittings. Decisions. Declarations

Visit to Germany

The Moldovan president led Moldovan delegation to Germany on 15–16 May, where he had meetings with the head of the German Bundestag, the Berlin city mayor. Voronin has attended a meeting of the Fridrih Ebert Foundation.

In Stutgart, which hosted the exhibition Moldova Present, Voronin has a meeting with representatives of the Association of Bessarabian Germans who left Moldova in 1940 and called them for economic cooperation.

GUAM summit

The Moldovan president has attended the GUAM Summit and handed over the chairmanship in this organisation to his Ukrainian counterpart. The Moldovan leader has signed the constitution documents of GUAM, which turned into the Organisation for Democracy and Economic Development — GUAM. Addressing the summit over handing over of the chairmanship,Voronin described the organisational development of GUAM as successful and proposed to call GUAM as the Commonwealth of European Option for Democracy and Economic Development.

Declaration on presence of Moldova in CIS

Asked on the Kiev airport about Moldova’s staying in the CIS, Voronin said that the withdrawal of our country from this structure “rests with the Parliament’s competence,” declining this way his responsibility for delivering some clear statements. Voronin noted that the agenda of the GUAM leaders did not include issues on withdrawal from CIS and GUAM is not “an alternative” for CIS. It is worth to note in this context that the Government has turned down a proposal of opposition lawmakers to denounce the agreement on constitution of CIS, while the Parliament excluded this initiative from its agenda without examining it, indicating the absence of its developers at the sitting.

Summit of Central European leaders

Vladimir Voronin addressed the May 19 Summit in Varna, Bulgaria, and indicated mainly developments in the Central European area, the European integration course of Moldova. The chief of state said that the modernisation of Moldova is reduced to several basic tasks:

building of a functional and efficient democratic system;
combat of corruption;
political settlement of the Transnistrian conflict.

Sitting of the Supreme Security Council

On May 22, Vladimir Voronin chaired a sitting of the Supreme Security Council that examined measures against forgery, disorder and abuses discovered in the national system for awarding of invalidity degrees. The Supreme Security Council has approved a series of measures aimed to improve the situation in the field, including the modification of the regulation on bodies in charge with medical expertise of vitality, improvement of normative acts on invalidity; permanent monitoring of respect for legislation in the field; adequate sanctioning of people who forged medical files and awarded invalidity degrees illegally, with pay of pecuniary damage to state. The sitting also discussed the problem of extended participation of the National Army military in the international post-conflict humanitarian operation in Iraq, tackled at the initiative of the U.S. Government. The Supreme Security Council has accepted the proposal and asked the Government to start the necessary procedure, noting that military will be voluntarily deployed through contract.

Sitting on participation in The Millennium Challenge Account

A sitting of the governmental working group for the participation of Moldova in The Millennium Challenge Account has informed the chief of state about finalisation and delivery of a draft action plan against corruption for examination. The document contains five chapters:

consolidation of capacities of judicial system in preventing and combating corruption;
consolidation of capacities of civil society and mass media;
prevention and control of corruption in healthcare system;
prevention and control of corruption in tax, customs system, police;
optimisation of activity of the Centre for the Struggle Against Economic Crimes and Corruption.

Vladimir Voronin stressed that the setup of an anti-corruption system is a fundamental interest of the entire society and state institutions and civil society, business environments, mass media, etc. will be rallied to accomplish it. The chief of state ordered a urgent elaboration of a mechanism for anti-corruption expertise of draft laws submitted to the Parliament, insisting on implementation of his previous indications that every state structure implements an internal mechanism of control and prevention of corruption.

Special attention for child’s protection

The situation in the child’s protection system was examined at a sitting convoked by President Voronin with the participation of Prime Minister Vasile Tarlev, heads of some ministries, state and public structures. According to the chief of state, the current child’s protection system is inefficient, a little targeted at prevention and reduction of desertion of children by own parents and support for families in need. The institutionalisation is the main form of protection of child in need within the present protection system, a form much more expensive than prevention based on family support systems and different community services. Voronin seeks a cardinal reformation of the child’s protection system based on a new organisation structure of the system; development of mechanisms of assistance of families with children in need; ,reformation of the residential protection system; elaboration of a complex normative act on protection and promotion of children’s rights; revision of the mechanism of financing of the system, etc.

The ideas and proposals launched at the sitting were also part of a speech that Voronin delivered at a national conference on social dimension of the child’s protection system in Moldova, which took place on 29 May 2006.

The Moldovan president has indicated hypothetic reforms in his statements and did not tackle directly the problem of the rise of indemnities for birth and primary maintenance of child, these amounts paid by Moldovan authorities being the lowest ones in European states and discourage young families. Nor he spoke about perspectives of promoting the draft law on additional social protection for large families, which is part of the Parliament’s agenda since late 2003.

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