Sandu: EU Introduced Political Conditions because Government Is not Intent to Introduce Reforms

PAS leader Maia Sandu claims that the EU put forward only a technical condition for the second tranche of macro-financial assistance last November. However, after the government was headed by Prime Minister Ion Chicu, things worked out differently. Thus, part of the EU’s terms, including the NGOs law adoption and the Citizenship through Investments Law repeal, have become political conditions introduced by the EU, ipn.md reports. Maia Sandu claims that in November 2019 the technical condition should have been accepted, and in December the money was supposed to arrive in the Republic of Moldova. “In a situation where the government has changed, in a situation where the European Union saw that there is no desire to abide by democratic principles, to continue the reform of justice, to continue all the reforms that we started to fight against corruption, the EU has the opportunity to introduce additional political conditions if the government is not committed to implementing these reforms. Adopting this law was a condition,” said Maia Sandu in the air of “Punctul pe Azi” on TVR Moldova. The PAS chairman argues that after the government dragged on repealing the Citizenship through Investments Law, as well as the Television and Radio Council reform, the European Union also made political conditions out of these actions. "Political conditions were first introduced in the context of the EU mechanisms because of the Republic of Moldova, because of the Plahotniuc regime, when they said in Brussels that when you have irresponsible governance, you should also have political levers to make irresponsible people respect democratic processes", Maia Sandu added. In the same context, the former prime minister noted that in addition to the second tranche, the Republic of Moldova will lose the third tranche.