Moldova denounces Agreement establishing Commonwealth of Independent States

Moldova is denouncing the Agreement establishing the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), the protocol to this Agreement, as well as the CIS Statute. Two draft laws providing for this step are to be examined by the government at its meeting due on March 11.

The drafts were submitted by the Foreign Affairs Ministry (MAE), which justified the denunciation by saying that “the values and fundamental principles of the Community are not observed, particularly by the Russian Federation, the state that was at the basis of the CIS’s establishment.”

“In accordance with Article 5 of the Agreement, the states ‘mutually recognize and respect the territorial integrity and the inviolability of existing borders within the Community.’ This principle, which formed the basis for the establishment of the CIS, is not respected by the Russian Federation and is regularly violated: the act of aggression against Georgia, the war against Ukraine, the occupation and annexation of the territories of these countries, and the illegal stationing of Russian military troops on the territory of Moldova,” the draft reads.

At the same time, the MAE emphasizes that the denunciation of the CIS Agreement is a natural and inevitable step in the context of the process of accession to the European Union.

The denunciation of the Agreement will not require the allocation of financial resources from the state budget. Moreover, Moldova will definitively withdraw from the statutory bodies of the CIS, which will lead to the cessation of payments of its membership contributions to the single CIS budget. The annual share of the Moldova in the single CIS budget is approximately 3.1 million lei, the Foreign Affairs Ministry notes.

At the same time, the draft underlines that “the denunciation of the Agreement will not create a legal vacuum in the relations between Moldova and CIS member states,” since these relations “will be based on the bilateral and multilateral legal framework.”

The Agreement establishing the Commonwealth of Independent States and the protocol to this Agreement were signed in December 1991 by 11 former Soviet states, including Moldova.

Also on March 11, the government is to examine the draft law on the denunciation of the Statute of the Commonwealth of Independent States, adopted in Minsk on January 22, 1993. The initiative was proposed by Foreign Affairs Ministry, which stressed that, given that Moldova had initiated the procedure for denouncing the Agreement establishing the CIS, the denunciation of the Statute is an inevitable process in the event of withdrawal from the Commonwealth of Independent States.

To date, Moldova has denounced approximately 70 agreements with the CIS, as part of an ongoing process of aligning national policies and modernizing the country’s legislative and economic framework to EU standards and norms.