Politics

​PREMIER FILIP SENDS CANDIDACIES OF 9 AMBASSADORS TO PRESIDENT DODON FOR APPROVAL

23 february, 2017

Prime Minister Pavel Filip has sent for President Igor Dodon’s approval the candidacies of 9 Moldovan ambassadors to foreign countries, the deschide.md portal reported on Thursday with reference to its sources.

According to this information, the list of proposed diplomats is as follows:

Ambassador to the United States – Aureliu Ciocoi, incumbent Ambassador to China;

Ambassador to Greece – Anatol Vangheli, incumbent Secretary General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and European Integration [MFA];

Ambassador to Spain – Violetta Agrici, incumbent Director of the MFA General Consular Department;

Ambassador to France – Emil Druc, incumbent Director of the MFA Department for International Cooperation;

Permanent Representative at the United Nations – Victor Moraru, incumbent Deputy Director of the MFA Department for International Cooperation;

Ambassador to Poland – Vladimir Chirinciuc, incumbent official at the Moldovan Embassy to Austria;

Ambassador to Belarus – Vladimir Ciobanu, a former presidential adviser;

Ambassador to Austria – Valeria Seican, a former adviser to culture minister;

Ambassador to Great Britain – Igor Clipii, incumbent Deputy Secretary General of the Parliament, ex-ambassador to China.

During his official visit to Moscow in mid-January, President Igor Dodon stated he would refuse to appoint new ambassadors because the Government had refused to call home Moldova’s Ambassador to Romania Mihai Gribincea. The head of state demanded his revocation after the diplomat dared criticize the actions taken by the President to recall the Moldovan citizenship from former Romanian President Traian Basescu.

“Soon, the Government will be supposed to appoint 20 new ambassadors. I shall not sign presidential decrees, and we’ll see what they will be doing”, Dodon stated then.

The news about the nomination of the said ambassadorial candidacies appeared 3 days after the President had held his first meeting with the Speaker and Prime Minister. Analysts presume that the three could well discuss inter alia the question of staff reshuffling, which process must be done upon agreement between the President and Government. For instance, the defense minister post became vacant yet 2 months ago.

Meanwhile, the information about the nomination of the ambassadorial candidacies is causing perplexity. According to the standard procedure, the Government must first adopt a Resolution on appointing ambassadors, after which must apply to the head of state for approving these appointments by means of presidential decrees. This routine has not been observed. Besides this, not all of the mentioned ambassadorial posts are vacant at the moment because not all of the old ambassadors concerned have been recalled home.

For quite a long time (over one year), the posts of ambassadors to the United States, Great Britain and Austria have been remaining vacant. At the same time, ambassadors to the United Nations and Poland have not been revoked yet. The Government may well be afraid of recalling these diplomats because the President may refuse to appoint new ones.

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