Less than a third of the actions planned by the Moldovan government within the priority reform agenda, planned for March-June 2016, had been fully implemented. The Government’s main drawbacks include the reform of the National Anticorruption Center, the slow pace of investigations on the bank frauds of 2014 and the failure to negotiate a better deal on the energy price with Ukraine. The successes include the adoption of the Investment Attraction Strategy for 2016-2020, initiation of the reformation process of the banking system and “unfreezing” the negotiations with IMF on a potential program. These and other conclusions are included in the intermediary monitoring report on implementation of the Roadmap regarding the agenda of high-priority reforms, developed by ADEPT Association, Expert-Grup Think Tank and Legal Resources Centre from Moldova (LRCM).
The Roadmap regarding the agenda of high-priority reforms contains the activities in 31 areas that the authorities committed to in order to overcome the social, economic and political crisis in the Republic of Moldova. Once the crisis is overcome, Moldova is to return to the implementation of strategic policy documents: the Association Agenda and the Moldova-EU Association Agreement, in accordance with the provisions of the National Action Plan and other strategic policy documents.
Quantitatively, towards the end of June the deadlines have expired for 57 activities out of those 69 included in the Roadmap. Consequently, of the total of 69 activities, 29% were realized without deficiencies, 30% were realized with deficiencies, 16 activities (23%) of the total are in progress positive, and 6 (9%) are in progress negative of implementation, with serious deficiencies that might prevent successful implementation of the activities. The implementation of 6 (9%) of the activities has not been started.
Among the main drawbacks in implementing the objective „good governance and rule of law” there are the reform of the National Anticorruption Center and the adoption of a new Audio-visual Code (one of the big arrears of all the governments since 2011 until now). On the objective „economic development and functioning market economy”, we point out the slow pace of investigations on the bank frauds of 2014, slow pace of reforms within the National Bank (NBM) in terms of fostering its independence and competences, as well as slow pace of implementation of the association agreement. In the energy sector, due to the lack of transparency in renewing the contract with the Transnistrian region supplier and rejecting the offer of the Ukrainian supplier, the price negotiated was not the most advantageous.
Among the main achievements there can be mentioned promulgation of the law on prosecution, adoption of the law on optimization of the court system and of the package of laws on integrity, optimisation of state inspections, approval of the Investment Attraction and Export Promotion Strategy 2016-2020, initiation of the reformation process of the banking system by aligning it to Basel 3 principles, “unfreezing” the negotiations with IMF on a potential program, initiation of the public administration reform, and, last but not least, the relatively transparent and inclusive process of selection of NBM Governor and members of the NBM Supervisory Board.
The Report includes the assessment of measures carried out during March – June 2016 and recommendations for each area of the Roadmap (the report is available in Romanian, English and Russian on the websites of each of the three organizations).
The developments regarding the implementation of the Roadmap can be viewed online via an interactive application available here (in Romanian, English and Russian). The information in the interactive application will be updated on a weekly basis. In September, the three organizations will present the final report on implementation of the Roadmap, including recommendations for necessary follow up measures.
The electronic version of the Report is available here.
The report is made possible by the generous support of the American people through the US. Agency for International Development (USAID). The views and opinions expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of USAID.