CHISINAU, April 18. /TASS/. The leader of Moldova’s Party of Socialists, Igor Dodon, said on Monday that the European Union has been supporting a corrupted oligarchic regime in Moldova which is the reason for the failure of the policy of European integration in the country.
"In 2009, about 70% of Moldovans supported the course towards European integration. Now the number of supporters of the idea of European integration has halved to 32-34%," the party’s press service quoted his as saying at a news conference in at the Council of Europe’s headquarters in Strasbourg.
"It should set you thinking. You should understand that European integration in Moldova has failed and the Moldovan ‘success story’ you have been speaking about in Brussels, Strasbourg and other European capitals for years, has failed. And all because of the politicians you have been backing for seven years," Dodon, whose party controls a fourth of seats in the Moldovan parliament, said.
He said Moldova been seeing only regression since 2009 when the coalition of pro-European parties came to power. The country, in his words, has been named among countries with the most corrupted court system and dropping media freedom ratings. He accused the country’s authorities of monopolizing the press. In his words, about 70% of Moldova’s mass media are controlled by the Democratic Party which formed a new ruling coalition at the beginning of the year.
One of the key questions Moldovans have is who the European Union supports, the Socialist leader said. "What has so much money been spent on? On nourishing the oligarchic regime?," he said.
Ongoing mass protests in Moldova
Large-scale protests erupted in Moldova in the spring 2015 after the media had reported a theft of about one billion U.S. dollars from three Moldovan banks, which nearly went bankrupt. Those protests involved different spectrum of the Moldovan opposition, such as Our Party and the Party of Socialists which advocate closer relations with Russia and the center-right Dignity and Truth Civil Platform that supports the course towards European integration. The latter accused the current Moldovan authorities of discrediting this idea. Protesters put tent camps in central Chisinau in front of the buildings of the Moldovan government and parliament.
Protests invigorated after January 20, 2016 when the protesters attempted a storm of the parliament building when lawmakers were appointing a government of Pavel Filip. Protest movements however began to decline shortly after and now only a few tents in central Chisinau remind of them.
Plans of opposition
Moldova’s opposition however has announced plans to resume on April 24 protests demanding resignation of the ruling coalition of pro-European parties they accuse of corruption and the current economic crisis. Among the organizers is Renato Usatii, the leader of the opposition Our Party and mayor of Moldova’s second largest city of Balti. He called on the party supporters to come to central Chisinau on that day and bring car tyres to set fires.
"We must joint efforts to do away with this criminal junta which is seeking to destroy Moldova’s sovereignty and make a flock of sheep of us," he said. "Protesters must get mobilized and send some to resignation, and some - to prison for having mistreated the people in the past six years."
Authorities seeking to snatch initiative
Meanwhile, the Moldovan government tried to snatch the initiative and advanced a number of anti-corruption initiatives, slackened the price policy and ruled to return to general election of the president.