Moldovan parliamentary council for European integration holds first meeting

Chisinau, 19 April /MOLDPRES/-The Parliamentary Council for European Integration has held its first meeting. The parliament set up this forum to ensure an internal mechanism of communication and coordination in the European integration process, in order to promote the legislative agenda of European integration, the parliament’s communication and public relations department has reported.  

At the meeting, Parliament Speaker Andrian Candu urged to mobilization and raising awareness the heads of the parliamentary factions, MPs and civil servants, nominated to identify and liquidate the arrears in implementing the Association Agreement and to synchronize the agendas between the parliament and government.   

“To better coordinate the implementation of the Association Agreement and the free trade accord, we start working on parliamentary platform more intensely and in a more organised way in enforcing Moldova’s agenda towards EU. We are an associated state with EU, with clear-cut commitments, including calendar ones, which must be followed and observed,” Andrian Candu said.

The speaker demanded that an agenda of actions, due to be undertaken, should be worked out till next week. The agenda will be carried out based on what is stipulated in the Roadmap, signed by the parliament and government, on the agenda of priority reforms, which are to be implemented till 31 July 2016. The agenda will include also the actions provided for in the legislative programme on fulfilling the commitments of transposition, assumed within the Association Agreement.  

At the same time, Andrian Candu said that he would ask for the support of the development partners, to ensure the needed expertise and technical backing, including in the form of training and transfer of good practices for civil servants of the parliament’s secretariat.   

“I rely on the political factor’s willingness to back the draft laws, enforce them, assess their impact, as well as the parliamentary control. At the same time, the work of parliament’s employees is important too, as they will supervise the quality of the legislative process, in order to ensure a quick enforcement of the Association Agreement,” Andrian Candu said.   

Under the regulation on work, the Council will monitor the process of implementation of the concrete legislative commitments, taken through the European integration agenda, will exercise mechanisms of parliamentary control, especially in terms of the actions provided for in the Roadmap.

The Council is made up of 15 members, including the deputy parliament speakers, the nine commission heads, the chiefs of the Moldova – EU Parliamentary Association Committee and Moldova’s Delegation to the Euronest Parliamentary Assembly, parliament’s secretary-general and the head of the juridical general directorate at the parliament’s secretariat.

The Parliamentary Council for European Integration was created with the support of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Moldova, within the programme, Improving Democracy through Electoral Parliamentary Support, implemented with financial support of Sweden.   

(Editor M. Jantovan)