CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT ON EUROPEAN INTEGRATION FAILS TO RECEIVE ENOUGH VOTES

The draft constitutional amendment on including Euro-integration into the Main Law as the nation’s main development vector has failed to receive enough votes in the Moldovan Parliament on Thursday. The amendment received only 54 ballots in the 101-member forum, whereas constitutional amendments require minimum two-thirds of MPs i.e. 67-of-101.

The DP-proposed constitutional amendment bill was supported by the Democrats and the parliamentary European People Group (EPG). The Liberals and Liberal Democrats refused to vote and walked out of the session room.

Parliament Chairman Andrian Candu expressed disappointment that “the Moldovan politicians have missed a historic chance for adopting a bill of a paramount importance for the country’s future”.

“I can understand the Socialists and Communists who stand up for Eurasian integration. But I can’t understand the Liberals and Liberal Democrats who constantly claim they stand for European integration. Starting from today, they have lost the right to call themselves pro-European parties, and their voters should know that these two organizations have turned their backs to European integration and left the session room at the critical voting moment”, stated Andrian Candu.

He read out the list of the LP and LDPM deputies’ names so that “to let the country know its heroes”. Candu stressed that the session room was left by 13 deputies – precisely the number which the bill missed to be adopted, “for 54 plus 13 makes 67”.

Democratic MP Marian Lupu stated that the Liberal Party and the Liberal Democratic Party, as well as the Party of Action and Solidarity (PAS) and the DA Platform “are actually not pro-European”.

“They openly state to be unionist forces [unionists are adherents to the idea of Unirea – Moldova’s unification with Romania]. Unionism is not European integration of Moldova but is its killer. Today we had a real possibility to put a barrier to the ideas of Moldova’s accession to the Eurasian Economic Union [of Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan, EAES]”, presumes Marian Lupu.

MP Vadim Pistrinciuc of the Liberal Democratic Party stated that during the week that passed since the voting postponement until today, no discussions were organized, or working meetings on the issue, and nobody cared to consider even a single remark received from the European Union.

He called upon the parliamentary majority to return to the work on implementation of the EU-Moldova Association Agreement and to “give up political games at last”.

According to the law, a failed bill may not be brought for a repeated consideration in parliament within shorter than one year.