​PARLIAMENT TO HOLD FIRST PLENARY MEETING NEXT FRIDAY

The Moldovan Parliament will convene for the first plenary meeting of its new Spring-Summer Session next Friday, February 24, the forum’s Permanent Bureau decided on Wednesday.

Parliament Chairman Andrian Candu stated to the press that on Friday the Parliament will discuss the 2017 Action Plan for the realization of the EU-Moldova Association Agreement.

“There is a national Action Plan worked out by the Government. In accordance with it, we must discuss and approve the Parliament’s work priorities for the current year”, said Candu.

In his words, the Session’s priorities will include: control over the realization of the Laws adopted in 2016; introduction of a parliamentary control over this process; the Roadmap agreed on with the European Union; consolidation of the country’s financial and banking system; energy sector reform; struggle against corruption; judiciary reform.

Speaker Candu announced the Parliament’s intention to set up a working team for drafting amendments to the Election Code and to the electoral legislation.

“In this sense, there is an address of 17 civil society organizations, recommendations of the Constitutional Court and of the international organizations who worked at the recent presidential election, including experts from the Council of Europe, European Union and the OSCE. We have to scrutinize these recommendations in this working team that will include profiled experts and the representatives of all parliamentary factions”, said Andrian Candu.

He expressed hope the team will convene for its first working meeting in a week or two to begin the review of the whole electoral legislation in Moldova.

However, Candu evaded answering concretely about the much-spoken need for changing the country’s electoral system.

“It is obvious that the current electoral legislation contains drawbacks. These pertain to voting in foreign countries, election coverage by the mass media and other. All this needs to be thoroughly debated and considered to eventually improve the legislation. So far, I cannot formulate my opinion. I will participate in this work to get a full knowledge of the question. At the moment I can only say that the electoral legislation requires improvement”, said the parliament chairman.