Association for Participatory Democracy ADEPT, Expert‐Grup Think Tank and Legal Resources Centre from Moldova (LRCM) monitored 69 activities from 13 areas included in the Priority Reform Action Roadmap, for which the implementation deadline expired on July 31, 2016. The monitors have found that half of the 69 activities planned by the Government in the Roadmap have been fully achieved and without deficiencies. The remaining activities either have been executed with deficiencies related to their content or the breach of legislative procedure and transparency in decision‐making or have not been completed. More details about the taken activities can be found in an interactive application.

Towards the end of July, 35 (51%) out of 69 activities included in the Roadmap have been achieved without deficiencies, 24 (35 %) have been achieved with deficiencies and 10 activities (14%) have not been completed. When estimating the implementation of the Priority Reform Action Roadmap, the main emphasis was put on the quality of adopted acts/taken activities and less on the compliance of deadlines, because they were often very tight. Putting one activity into a category of achieved with deficiencies means that during its implementation have been observed problematic issues related to: the respect of legal provisions on legislative process and transparency in decision making, the content of the adopted act or activity taken does not comply with the spirit of the given act/activity or are not in line with international commitments.

Among the main outstanding matters in implementing the objective „good governance and rule of law” are: the reform of the National Anticorruption Center, the adoption of a new Audiovisual Code and demonopolisation of media market, disbursement of public funds to political parties. On the objective „economic development and functioning market economy”, we point out drawbacks related to adoption of bridge bank and appointment of the two deputy Governors of the National Bank, the adoption of related legislation on market surveillance, metrology and standardization and the 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 the promulgation of the laws on prosecution, on reorganization of the judicial system and of the package of laws on integrity, optimization of state inspections, approval of the Investment Attraction and Export Promotion Strategy 2016‐2020, adoption of the financial‐banking legislative package agreed with the IMF and WB, and the new laws on electricity and natural gas, launching the reform of the banking system by aligning it to Basel 3 principles, resuming negotiations with IMF on a new cooperation agreement, 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.

It is also important to note that the Government in tis evaluation of the Roadmap used the number of 82 activities instead of 69 included initially in the document. The additional 12 activities resulted from the disaggregation of activities 1.2, 1.3 and 10.1. The sub‐activities have been separately evaluated and this influenced the final assessment results reported by the Government. It is not clear what criteria the Government used for selecting the activities to be disaggregated and evaluated separately, since the Roadmap contains much more complex activities.

The monitoring results regarding the implementation of the Roadmap can be viewed online via an interactive application available here:  http://www.expert‐grup.org/ro/activitate/item/1292‐aplicatie‐monitorizare‐reforme‐guvern (in Romanian and English). In September, the three organizations will present the final report on implementation of the Roadmap, including recommendations for necessary follow up measures.

The monitoring exercise 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.

Contact persons for additional information:

ADEPT, Elena Prohnițchi, tel: 022‐213‐494, email: adept@e‐democracy.md

Expert_Grup, Vadim Gumene, tel: 022‐929‐994, email: vadim@expert‐grup.org

CRJM, Nadejda Hriptievschi, tel: 022‐843‐601, ext. 102, email: nadejda.hriptievschi@old2.old.crjm.org