“The Political Class is not Ready for a Constructive Dialogue with Gagauzia.” Vlah complains about the Moldovan Delegation to the PACE

The Moldovan delegation at a session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) refused to consider a package of bills securing the status of the Gagauz autonomy, reported the head of the Gagauzia Irina Vlah on her Facebook page on October 7. “The political class of our country is not ready for a constructive dialogue with Gagauzia and continues to consider the region through the prism of potential threats but not opportunities,” Vlah complained. According to Vlah, the PACE meeting heard a report on the functioning of democratic institutions in Moldova. After that, the Turkish delegation proposed to consider the “Gagauz package” of legislative initiatives introduced in the Parliament in 2017. However, the delegation from Moldova refused to vote for the final text of the resolution. “The position of Andrian Kandu was particularly perplexing, since it was he who was at the origins of the creation of the working group and repeatedly expressed his opinion on the need to adopt the “Gagauz package” of legislative initiatives,” Vlah added. Nevertheless, Vlah promised that Gagauzia’s authorities “will continue to draw the attention of the international community to the systematic violation of the special legal status of Gagauzia”. The previous parliament did not adopt a package of bills securing the status of the Gagauz autonomy. The MPs of the Moldovan parliament and the People’s Assembly of Gagauzia worked for three years on a compromise solution. The working group developed and agreed on three bills that clarify the status of the Gagauz autonomy and add authorities to its governing bodies. One of these bills provided for an amendment to the law “On the administrative-territorial structure of the Republic of Moldova”. The bill proposed to introduce a new, special level for Gagauzia into the administrative-territorial structure of the Republic of Moldova. Until now, Gagauzia belonged to the administrative-territorial units of the second level, like ordinary areas. The same bill proposed introducing into the law “On the administrative-territorial structure” a provision according to which changes in the status of ATU Gagauzia, seceding from or joining Gagauzia may be implemented in accordance with the provisions of the 1994 law on the special legal status of Gagauzia. Another bill amended the law “On local public administration”. The essence of the amendments is that the order of organization and functioning of local public authorities of a special level is regulated by this law in part, which does not contradict the norms of the law “On the special legal status of Gagauzia”. In other words, the system of local public administration authorities should take into account the autonomy within Moldova with a special level of governance. The third draft law involves amending the law “On the special legal status of Gagauzia”. According to the amendment, any change to this law is possible only by agreement with the People’s Assembly of Gagauzia. In other words, the Moldovan parliament will not be able to change this law without a positive opinion of the PAG. As a result, however, Chisinau make use of only the decisions in the administrative and financial spheres agreed on by the negotiators. The autonomy authorities insist on the adoption of documents agreed by the working group. NewsMaker