EX-DEMOCRATS COLLECT SIGNATURES FOR FIXING EUROPEAN INTEGRATION IN CONSTITUTION

The new group called 'Pro Moldova', which has just been formed in the Parliament by the six deputies who divorced the Democratic Party on Wednesday, has begun collecting signatures in support of introducing into the Constitution the provision on the country's European integration.

Group leader Andrian Candu said at a news conference on Thursday that the group is beginning consultations with various parliamentary factions in order to eventually collect minimum 34 deputies' signatures and to refer the group-drafted bill to the Constitutional Court to receive its conclusion.

"We are going to discuss this initiative with the two factions of the political bloc ACUM and with the Democratic faction, our former colleagues [until yesterday]. We will ask them. May be we are mistaken and they are still adherents to European values and to the country's European development vector. If they have not completely forgotten their election pledges to the DPM electorate, then I can't see reasons why they should refuse to put their signatures under this initiative", said Andrian Candu.

He also announced that the Pro Moldova group will become the backbone and initiator of establishing a new organization in this republic - a right-centrist political party to stand for European integration and Western values.

The leader of the new parliamentary group said that he contacted former DPM Chairman Vladimir Plahotniuc by phone to tell him about the six deputies' decision to quit the DPM and its parliamentary faction "because Mr. Plahotniuc is the man who brought me into politics. I thought it would be correct from the moral point of view to inform him from the first hands and not from the press. I just brought that news to him. It was not a consultation. Plahotniuc will play no role whatsoever in the new right-centrist movement, and will not be influencing on it".