Activity of the President on December 1–31, 2008

Decrees

Moldova’s President has decreeted the appointment of Mihail BODEAN and Alexandru LUNCARI as deputy directors of the Information and Security Service.

Sergiu PUSCUTA was appointed adviser to the President of the Republic of Moldova in financial matters, a position especially created for this occasion.

Note by ADEPT: Previously, Puscuta headed the Centre for Combating Economic Crimes and Corruption (CCECC) and the Main State Tax Inspectorate. Following the meeting of the Supreme Security Council of 19 November 2008, the Government decided to dismiss Sergiu Puscuta as CCECC director at “his own request”. Puscuta acted as a presidential adviser in economic and financial matters during the mandate of President Petru Lucinshi.

Serghei SIRBU was assigned deputy chief of the directorate for law and public relations of the Moldovan President’s Apparatus, and Mariana SACAREANU was appointed deputy chief of the service for presidential acts of the law and public relations directorate of the Moldovan President’s Apparatus.

Nicolae GUMENII was nominated Moldovan Ambassador to Ukraine and Eugenia KISTRUGA was appointed Ambassador, Moldova’s Resident Representative to the Council of Europe.

Andrei NEGUTA was nominated Moldovan Ambassador to Russian Federation.

Croatia’s President Stjepan MESIC was awarded Moldova’s supreme order, the Order of the Republic.

Decrees awarding the Labour Glory Order to:

Valeriu SAVA, advising minister, ad-interim charge d’affaires of the Moldovan Embassy in the Russian Federation;
Constantin ANDREEV, manager of the state-owned enterprise Editura Universul.

Natalia MOLDOVANU, deputy chairwoman of the Supreme Court of Justice, was awarded the honour title Emeritus Person.

Meetings. Decisions. Statements

Concerns with public security and rule of law

The Moldovan president has convoked heads of some law enforcement bodies in a working meeting on optimising actions aimed at ensuring the state security and rule of law, invoking the discovery of an arsenal of weapons, munitions and explosive substances in the city of Comrat. The chief of state signalled the inactivity and non-vigilance of territorial bodies and stressed that such action of criminal groups threats the national security and worsens the crime rate. Vladimir Voronin instructed competent authorities to take necessary actions in order to find persons involved in storing illicit weapon and ammunition arsenals in Comrat and punish them accordingly to the law, as well as to prevent such criminal actions in the future.

Concerns with economic-financial situation

Aspects of the current situation in the context of the world financial-economic crisis and actions to be taken in case of pessimistic developments for Moldova were presented and discussed at the meeting. The president underlined the necessity to strictly monitor the economic-financial situation and markets in neighbouring and farther countries by setting up a strict interaction between economic bloc of Moldovan Government and National Bank of Moldova. Mr. Voronin emphasized the imperative of fulfilling strictly and in the spirit of economy the budgetary expenses foreseen for 2009, with a special attention being reserved to social-humanitarian programmes, functioning of healthcare, education, social protection, and ensuring the continuity of investment projects on modernisation of infrastructure.

Urgent reforms relating to management of judicial system

Participants in a presidential meeting have exchanged opinions regarding ways to improve actions by law courts, enhance the judges’ liability for their decisions and ensure the correctness of judicial proceedings in general. They raised proposals on necessary actions aimed at improving the current situation in this area.

Note by ADEPT: Shortly after the meeting, without holding any public debates and providing details about researches and concrete shortcomings in the functioning of justice, the chief of state has signed a legislative initiative on reforming the mode of organisation and functioning of the Superior Council of Magistracy, College of Qualification and Attestation of judges and Disciplinary Board of judges, recommending a serious reduction of the number of magistrates in these bodies and granting more possibilities to executive and legislative authorities to exert influence.

Meeting with ambassadors in Chisinau

Few days after stating that his agenda does not include meetings with representatives of public missions, the Moldovan President has met ambassadors of EU member states, U.S., Turkey, European Commission and OSCE “to discuss latest developments and prospects to develop cooperation.” Vladimir Voronin highly appreciated the cooperation with EU member states, OSCE, CoE, U.S. in political, social-economic and cultural areas. In particular, he highly appreciated the dialogue between Moldova and EU, stressing that implementing previous commitments, negotiating and signing a new cooperation agreement, opening dialogue on visa liberalisation and a free exchange agreement which would provide Moldovan economic agents with new possibilities along with possibilities provided by the Autonomous Trade Preferences are priorities.

Speaking about Transnistrian settlement, Vladimir Voronin stressed Moldova’s actions aimed to ensure an international support for promoting the “package” initiatives on conflict resolution and reconfirmed that the “5+2” format must be the basic formula of negotiations.

President Voronin informed ambassadors about social-economic and political situation in Moldova, revealing that positive results are due to the political stability. Speaking about the forthcoming electoral campaign, Vladimir Voronin promised that Moldovan authorities will do their best to organise a scrutiny based on law principles, in compliance with European norms, will invite EU, OSCE observers, competent organisations to observe the electoral process throughout the campaign and elections in general.

The chief of state assured that Moldovan authorities call for a complete freedom of the media and journalists “who are legally doing their job” did not and will not face pressures. He invoked a recent decision by the Audiovisual Coordinating Council, which introduced a moratorium on contests for licenses expiring before the end of the 2009 electoral campaign, with Voronin adding that nor the license of PRO TV Chisinau will be proposed at a contest before the end of the campaign. Finally, Voronin reiterated the firm readiness of the state leadership to strictly respect the national legislation and advanced experience of democratic countries in terms of equal treatment of all participants in electoral process in ensuring and protecting the freedom of the media.

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