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US Dept of State - Hillary Rodham Clinton - Remarks At Millennium Challenge Corporation Signing Ceremony With the Government of MoldovaSECRETARY CLINTON: Thank you very much, Daniel, for that introduction. And I know that this very first compact signing for you will have a special place in your heart. And I don’t want to increase the pressure on Moldova, but I think the chairman – or the CEO is going to be paying very close attention to how well we do together.
I want to recognize and thank the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister who have already been acknowledged, and also our Ambassador to the Republic of Moldova. Ambassador Chaudhry, thank you for being here and for your good work on behalf of our efforts in Moldova. I know that we have the North Carolina Secretary of State Elaine Marshall, who is here. Is Elaine here? Because – there you are, I was looking for you, Elaine – North Carolina has a strong partnership with the government and people of Moldova, and we’re delighted that you would come up for this occasion.
And all of you, thank you for being here for this historic event, the signing of the Millennium Challenge Corporation Compact. Since 2004, MCC has worked with countries all over the world to help millions escape the grip of poverty, to work with governments so that they had more capacity to deliver services to their people, to provide the kind of technical assistance that would go for the long term in the way that governments conducted their business – transparently, with accountability, free from corruption.
Through the MCC, the United States has provided over billion to national governments committed to good governance, economic trade and investments, and the health and well-being of their people. The country-led MCC framework empowers nations to chart their own paths to progress. Each country has to identify its barriers to progress, has to craft solutions to overcome these barriers, has to implement the programs that will move the countries toward economic growth.
In the last five years, over 40 MCC Compact countries have built schools, roads, hospitals, and made many other investments in infrastructure that are providing a solid foundation for future prosperity. And today, I am pleased that we are able to add Moldova to that growing list. This is the final step of a journey that began in 2005 when Moldova became part of the MCC Threshold Program. As a threshold country, it pledged to undertake a series of reforms before it could become eligible for an MCC compact.
And working with the MCC and our partners at USAID, the government implemented legal reforms to curb corruption, introduced budgetary requirements that promoted transparency, and strengthened the capacity of civil society and the media to report on crime. And in that period, Moldova made significant progress economically, socially, and politically. And we are very pleased that this day has come. We applaud the people of Moldova and their leaders for embracing a reform agenda.
We know it was not easy. We know that it came at political cost. But it was so important because it has established a democratic Moldova that has, for the first time, a democratically- elected prime minister in eight years. So this agreement begins a new chapter in the relationship between our two countries. It reflects our commitment to help put the people of Moldova on the road to economic progress, and that’s literally because, as Daniel pointed out, we’re going to be building roads with this money.
We will also be rehabilitating irrigation systems, helping farmers transition into high-value agriculture that has real market quality inside of Europe and beyond, and building those safe roads from Chisinau to the Ukrainian border so that farmers can get their goods to market. These are all essential steps, and we will work with you and support you as you proceed. The Obama Administration is committed to building our partnership, broadening it, strengthening it, and seeing the people of Moldova reap the benefits of market reform, political reform, and all of the efforts that have been undertaken in the last years.
So, Prime Minister Filat, today’s signing is a victory for governance, human rights, and economic reform. We want Moldova to be part of the Euro-Atlantic alliance with all of the benefits that that will bring to the Moldovan people. So I congratulate you, your government, and your people for your ongoing commitment, and I wish you every success in the implementation of this compact. And I thank all of you for being here for this important milestone.
Now, please join me in welcoming His Excellency Prime Minister Filat to the podium.
Moldova to improve its retail business regulationThe Government intends to introduce order in Moldova's internal trade, as it considers the existing highest prices in Europe on consumer goods in one of its poorest countries as a crime against the citizens.
Vice-Premier, Minister of Economy Valeriu Lazar said that the reason for high prices on consumer goods is a high cost of trade transactions.
"It is not normal, when the profitability in the trade constitutes 500%", the minister considers.
He expressed his dissatisfaction concerning the quality of products at the market.
"There are thousand and one controlling institutions in the country, but despite of this fact consumers have to buy low-quality products", Lazer said, who considers that the provision of the Moldovan citizens' decent life and consumer protection as the state's most important objective.
He said that in order to solve this task, the Government works out the Bill on Internal Trade, which is designed to remove the existing market problems. The document is worked out by a new department on trade policies, which was set up by the Ministry of Economy.
Lazer said that the Government will have to analyze the situation in the retail trade and services network of the Moldcoop Union of Consumer Cooperation. He expressed regret with the fact that the Moldcoop will not invest its financial resources in the development of its own infrastructure and it will not attract investors' financial resources.
Earlier Prime Minister Vlad Filat also said that the Government has many questions to Moldcoop, in particular, concerning the assets of these enterprises and the document, confirming the share of their participation and the state of objects.
The sale volume of consumer goods in Moldovan shops constituted 17.93 billion lei ($16.3 million) over 11 months of 2009, it dropped by 4.6% against the same period of 2008. The decrease is conditioned, mainly, by a 10% decrease in the sale of industrial goods. The trade in food products, which accounted for a little more than one third of the retail trade volume, increased by 5.1%.
Infotag, Moldovan news agency
The quality of the roads from Republic of Moldova, worse than in some African villages, according to a World Economic Forum ratingRepublic of Moldova is the last country in the world a far as the quality of the road is concerned. According to a rating realized by World Economic Forum, Republic of Moldova records a score of 16 points of 7, DECA-press Agency transmits.
At the category “road quality”, Republic of Moldova is the 124th, being followed only by Chad, an African state, where there are the worst roads of the world. Better roads than in Moldova are recorded in under-developed countries such as: Angola, Cameroon and Mauritania.
The global average indicator of the road quality in the world is 3,4 points.
The neighbours of Republic of Moldova also do not have god roads, according to the cited top. Ukraine is the 104th with a score of 2,2 of 7 points, and Romania has 2,1 of 7 points (the 111th).
In the Eastern Europe, the first place is occupied by Croatia in this context (the 37th in the world with 4,7 points). The most qualitative roads of Europe are recorded in France (the second place in the world). The first place belongs to Singapore. In the Easter Europe, the first place is occupied by Croatia (the 37th place in the world with 4,7 points). Of the former Soviet countries, the best roads are recorded in Latvia (the 62nd place with 3,4 points of 7). // DECA-Press
Property - Doing Business in MoldovaProperty
The property right is declared and guaranteed in the Republic of Moldova based on the Constitution and international acts the Republic of Moldova is a party to.
Property is public and private. It consists of intellectual and material assets. The public property right, as well as state bonds is guaranteed.
Nobody can be expropriated solely for the cause of public utility established under the law with fair preliminary compensation. Legally obtained property cannot be confiscated. The legal nature of the obtained property is presumed.
The right of private property inheritance is guaranteed.
The only restriction refers to the right of inheritance of agricultural lands or forest funds. Thus, foreign citizens or economic entities/foreign or mixed companies cannot own agricultural lands.
The legislation implicitly stipulates that the right to purchase and sell agricultural lands belongs to the state, individuals, citizens of the Republic of Moldova, as well as legal entities whose statutory fund does not contain foreign capital.
If foreign nationals or stateless persons become agricultural land or forest fund owners through legal or testimonial inheritance, they are entitled to alienate them through legal acts only between living citizens of the Republic of Moldova.
Nevertheless, there are a number of legal means, through which a foreign company or a foreign national can own agricultural lands.
Asociaţia pentru Politică Externă // AnalysesFor the first time in recent memory, the heavy hitters of international election monitoring -- the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's Office of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, the Council of Europe and the European Parliament -- were in agreement with Russia-led observers from the Commonwealth of Independent States: Moldovan parliamentary elections on Sunday were run more or less in accordance with accepted norms.
Nonetheless, provocateur-instigated violence and vandalism broke out in Chisinau following massive, peaceful and spontaneous opposition protests. Shortly after the fires in the parliament were extinguished, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov spoke of the "rare display of unity" by the two usually conflicting groups of election observers and added that the demand to hold a new vote was "absolutely groundless."
Some might argue -- as did Emma Nicholson, a British member of the European Parliament -- that election violations were ignored because of Russia's sway over the consensus-bound OSCE. But Western-sponsored exit polls run by a respected Moldovan political analyst showed the Communists winning 45 percent of the vote. This was outside the usual margin of error for such polling but not by a preposterous amount. The current count gives the Communists 49.48 percent of the vote and still leaves them one seat short of avoiding a coalition government. Even the notoriously skeptical commentator Vladimir Socor compiled a convincing "10 Reasons Why the Communist Party Won Moldova's Elections Again," only one of which mentioned the power of the incumbency and pre-electoral irregularities.
So the burden is now on the opposition parties to prove their allegations that thousands of "dead souls" voted for the Communists on Sunday. The Moldovan Central Election Commission has promised to open its books and voter lists to the opposition. Eventually someone will be declared the winner of these elections and will form a new parliament, which will in turn elect a new president.
Beyond the elections and protests, we are seeing an enormous demographic and generation shift -- a trend not only in Moldova but in other former Soviet republics as they rediscover and reassert their national identities. According to exit polls, the majority of Moldovans who voted for the Communists were older, rural and less educated. They also had fond memories of the "stable times" when Moldova was a Soviet republic. Opposition voters tended to be young, urban, educated and more drawn toward Europe and an integrated future. A similar split is visible in the demographics of Moldova's breakaway, pro-Russian Transdnestr region, in contrast to the rest of Moldova, which leans more to the West. With each year, relations between the two regions become more estranged.
This schism in Moldova has profound implications for the region. It could also complicate U.S. efforts to "reset" relations with Russia -- in particular, finding common ground in building a new European security architecture. On the other hand, the Transdnestr conflict is by far the most amenable to resolution of the "frozen conflicts." A high-level, good-faith effort at resolving it in good faith could not only do much to develop the trust and substance that has for so long been lacking in U.S.-Russia relations but could actually advance the interests of both counties.
The United States, along with its European allies, wants a peaceful and democratic Europe. Russia wants to ensure security guarantees by, among other things, stopping NATO expansion and ensuring that it is surrounded by what it defines and perceives as friendly countries. Russia's refusal to withdraw its troops and armaments from Transdnestr has complicated the ratification of the Adapted Treaty on Conventional Forces in Europe.
The recent violence in Moldova has been a wake-up call for the Kremlin. It caught a disturbing glimpse of its nightmare scenario in which a pro-Romanian and pro-NATO government could come to power. Under this scenario, younger Moldovan leaders with no interest in reuniting with Transdnestr would be more ready to cut this troublesome sliver of land loose. Then they would race toward European political, economic and perhaps security integration, establishing another "pro-Western" nation on Ukraine's border. This would leave the Kremlin with the responsibility of supporting an impoverished Transdnestr surrounded by an unfriendly Moldova and a divided Ukraine, creating an even bigger headache than it is now.
Historically, only a very small percentage of Moldovans has favored union with Romania, but that number is growing, especially among the young. This factor helps explain both Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin and Russia's accusations of Romanian interference in the election process, instigation of the protests and escalation of them to violence.
The "5+2" framework to settle the Transdnestr dispute includes the OSCE, Russia, Ukraine, EU, United States, Moldova and Transdnestr. In 2007, the Moldovan and Transdnestr chief negotiators to the 5+2 talks on the breakaway region's settlement told me that if given the green light, they could resolve all the outstanding issues to settlement in about two weeks. The Moldovan "comprehensive package" plan -- which has never been rejected by Moscow and explicitly protects important Russian interests and institutions -- could form a road map for progress in the 5+2 talks. But, as with any negotiations, creative flexibility would be needed.
This willingness to compromise for an overall good deal has also been noticeably absent from U.S.-Russia relations. A strong commitment to solve the Transdnestr conflict in a way that respects key interests of all sides could open an important new area of trust in relations between the United States, EU and Russia. It could also improve the lives of people living in both Transdnestr region and the surrounding areas of Moldova and help eliminate the persistent zero-sum thinking that seems so out of place in the 21st century.
Louis O'Neill was OSCE ambassador and head of mission to Moldova from 2006 to 2008.
Home / Analyses / Wake-Up Call for the Kremlin. Louis O’Neill. Moscow Times.
Top 9 Ways For Voronin to Stay in Power
24 June 2009By Louis O'Neill
To Our Readers
Moldova remains a wonderland of political machination and cabal. After the opposition forced dissolution of the parliament and new elections, President Vladimir Voronin is playing hardball while changing the rules to his favor. Here's a list for staying on top courtesy of the last freely elected Communist Party in the world:
1. Neutralize young voters. Call snap elections in the dead of summer when many of your opponents' young and passionate supporters are away.
2. Leave the "dead souls" in peace. Rush the process to prevent those pesky voter lists from being properly checked.
3. Use smoke and mirrors. Send impossible deadlines and unfunded instructions to local leaders, essentially requiring a minicensus in several weeks.
4. Try to pull a fast one. Declare an unprecedented weekday election. Then, following public outrage, declare election day a holiday. Require citizens to work on a future Saturday to make it up.
5. Complicate overseas voting. Frustrate the 91 percent of expats who supported the opposition by calling a workday vote and limiting polling places with no absentee ballots allowed.
6. Anything goes. Drastically lower the participation thresholds so that few voters need show up to make the election official. After all, your supporters will be around this summer.
7. Introduce trojan horses. Make it easier for allied or virtual opposition parties to enter the parliament by lowering that threshold from 6 percent to 5 percent.
8. Slander your opponents. Using state-controlled media, broadcast programs that cut and paste wiretapped snippets out of their original context to claim that the opposition ordered April's postelectoral violence.
9. Sic the prosecutor on your opponents. Open a criminal investigation and repeatedly question your capital city's popular reformist mayor as a suspect of "usurpation of power."
Voronin and his Communist Party managed to get all this done even before the formal election campaign started, and there's little doubt that they've kept some tricky moves in reserve. If international monitors are serious about observing Moldova's repeat elections, they had better jump through the looking glass and open their eyes.
Louis O'Neill served as the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's ambassador and head of mission to Moldova from 2006 to 2008.
Ziarul de Gardă » MOLDOVA: crackdown on dissent must stopARTICLE 19 condemns the climate of fear created by the Moldovan government, including the intimidation and censorship of dissenting voices and the media. The organisation calls on the authorities to release all those imprisoned for the peaceful expression of their views, and urges them to establish the whereabouts of those that have allegedly “disappeared”. ARTICLE 19 also demands that that those peacefully expressing their views are protected from arbitrary detention and police brutality.
On 7 April, following a peaceful protest on 6 April by up to 10.000 people to ‘mourn’ the outcome of the elections, rioting broke out in the capital of the Republic of Moldova, Chisinau. Independent reports indicate that police used excessive force to disperse the demonstration. As a smaller protest continued on 8 April, police, both in plain cloths and in uniform, intimidated and attacked groups of protesters and journalists.
According to local reports, a group of young people were taken by police in plain clothing behind the National Palace in Chisinau, where they were beaten up and driven away in cars to an undisclosed location. Journalists from ‘Ziarul de Garda’ a national newspaper, who attempted to take pictures of the incident, were in turn assaulted by unidentified people in uniform and others dressed in black, who quickly removed themselves from the scene once a TV crew arrived. Uniformed police officers present refused to intervene and police did not respond to telephone calls by the journalists.
In another incident on 8 April a cameraman, Oleg Brega, leaving the protests in the evening, was attacked by people dressed in black, who stole his camera and he had to receive hospital treatment. On 9 April, together with another journalist he failed to return his phone calls and his whereabouts are currently unknown. His colleagues fear he has been arrested by police: ‘We don’t know where they and others are and will start an intensive search by visiting police stations in every district of Chisinau’, said Vanu Egheri of the Moldovan Institute for Human Rights.
On 9 April, local sources indicate that a number of students, who participated in the demonstrations, were removed from their university building in two cars and taken to an unknown location. At least 200 people, including minors, are currently in detention in relation to the demonstrations.
According to the local Independent Journalism Center at least 20 Romanian journalists were reportedly denied entry to Moldova on 7 and 8 April and internet sites, both news and social networking sites such as Facebook were blocked. The re-transmission of at least two TV service providers of a Romanian TV channel was stopped and the public broadcaster did not show any live footage of the demonstrations.
Although the organizers of the 6 April demonstration have immediately distanced themselves from the 7 April demonstration and the violence that followed, the Moldovan General Prosecutor’s office has indicated it is opening up to 30 criminal cases against the instigators of the 6 April demonstration, holding them responsible for the mass disturbances under Article 285(3) of the Criminal Code. If convicted they could be imprisoned for up to 8 years. They could also be charged with an attempt to overthrow the government, which is punishable with up to 25 years imprisonment.
“ARTICLE 19 is deeply worried about the current level of repression and crackdown in Moldova . We are extremely concerned about the well being of our colleagues and their friends and families, and all peaceful demonstrators, facing arrest and violence, and possible “disappearances». The crackdown is a sad reflection of the inability of the Moldovan government to govern and provide for its people”, said Dr. Agnès Callamard, ARTICLE 19 Executive Director.
ARTICLE 19 considers that the current climate of fear, through intimidation, attacks and possible ‘disappearances’ of peaceful demonstrators and journalists, and the censorship of the media, through assaults on journalist, entry bans and blocking of websites violate fundamental human rights, and in particular the right to freedom of expression. The fundamental right to freedom of expression is enshrined in Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which the Republic of Moldova acceded to in 1993 and is bound to uphold. If the authorities fail to conduct a prompt investigation into the allegations mentioned above they will further breach their obligations under the European Convention of Human Rights, which entered into force in Moldova in 1997.
As further protests are imminent, initiated by unknown organizers via SMS, ARTICLE 19 calls on the Moldovan government to ensure that the peaceful protesters are able to speak out and journalists can report without fear in accordance with international human rights standards.
NOTES TO EDITORS:
For more info rmation: please contact Nathalie Losekoot, ARTICLE 19 Senior Program Officer, Europe , at: +44-207278 9292 or nathalie@article19.org
ARTICLE 19 is an independent human rights organisation that works around the world to protect and promote the right to freedom of expression. It takes its name from Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which guarantees free speech
