Politics

PRESIDENT DODON DEFINES PRIORITIES FOR PARLIAMENTARY MAJORITY AND GOVERNMENT IN NEW SESSION OF PARLIAMENT

17 september, 2019

On Monday, President Igor Dodon appeared at a plenary meeting of the Moldovan Parliament and read out his Address to the legislative forum, in which he defined priorities for the parliamentary majority (PSRM + ACUM) and for the Maia Sandu Government for the period of the Parliament's just started Autumn-Winter Session.

The President said that the country is going through a complicated process of restarting, "which means liberation of state institutions from under the control of certain groups on interest and bringing of country robbers to responsibility". In his opinion, an extremely important step was made: right after the formation of the parliamentary majority, there began the liberation of state institutions of the people who had subdued the institutions to certain groups of interests.

Igor Dodon reminded that the new leadership had promised the citizens that they would begin living better, and that for this to achieve Moldova must have functional institutions and effective governance. He called on the society to overcome the euphoria of the first period, to firmly stand on the earth, return to the reality and stop making endless references to the problems inherited from the past.

"I guess we have to govern the country by being driven by a more concrete list of priorities that are closer to citizens' expectations", said Igor Dodon.

The head of state outlined the following 5 main priorities:

1. Improvement of the population's living standards, including through raising salaries and pensions, and preventing of tariff growth;

2. Creation of new jobs, and a better protection of existing ones. "In this field, I could not see any articulate agenda for the Government over the said first 100 days. Moreover, I presume that civil servants were treated not in the best possible way: instead of restricting themselves to dismissing only the heads of problematic institutions, the authorities went too far, firing unfoundedly many real professionals from lower echelons", said the President, insisting on stopping political purges of valuable specialists.

3. Ensuring of the country's economic development. "It would be totally unserious and politically immature to rely only on the financial assistance of our development partners or to endlessly debate only the heavy heritage of the previous authorities. Our people want to see the incumbent Government's plan of economic development, want to know what they should expect from the future, and not to be afraid of living in an economically unstable country", said Dodon.

4. Struggle against corruption. "If struggle against major corruption is the duty of the Prosecution Service, struggle against minor corruption, touching citizens daily, is mainly the Government's duty", the head of state said and called to "stop these daily abuses against citizens!".

5. Road repair. "The previous government used to solve this problem in a populist way, working with a very poor quality. Citizens are expecting that the new Government will work out a more efficient plan and build really good roads", said President Dodon. He is convinced that it is vitally necessary to work out a national project of road construction to be based on a fair and efficient distribution of resources available.

Touching on other problems, Dodon said that Moldova's greatest national tragedy is the demographic catastrophe the country has been suffering for many years already.

"The massive exodus of Moldovans to foreign countries is a tremendous danger for our very existence as a state - the danger which I, as President of the Republic of Moldova, am declaring as one of the main threats for our country. The current Government must demonstrate that they really understand this danger and find adequate decisions to stop this extremely negative demographic phenomenon", stressed the President.

He criticized the Government for its not very successful negotiations with the International Monetary Fund.

"To my mind, the recent raising of some taxes and other fiscal measures were insufficiently well-thought and caused a mess and discontent. And our attempts to shoulder the entire responsibility on the IMF are pointless", said Dodon.

In his words, "The IMF imposes nothing. The Fund only proposes, and its proposals are discussed, and counter-proposals are put forth, and eventually a formula is worked out that would ensure a fiscal balance and would not become a burden on citizens or business circles".

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