January 22 (SeeNews) - The European Parliament on Thursday said it welcomes the newly-approved government of Moldova and urged the country to pursue reforms.
The new government in Moldova is now taking office after more than a year of stalemate and systemic political instability, the European Parliament said in a statement issued after the MEPs voted on a resolution highlighting the efforts that Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine still have to make one year after they signed free trade union agreement their association and deep and comprehensive free trade agreements with the EU.
The MEPs also urged that those responsible for the theft of some 1 billion euro ($1.08 billion) from Moldova's banking system be brought to justice.
A new government led by former IT minister Pavel Filip was sworn in late on Wednesday after receiving parliament's backing in a confidence vote earlier in the day. Filip's nomination for prime minister, the fourth in less than a month, marked the latest stage in a political crisis that started a year earlier when $1 billion, equal to about 16% of the impoverished ex-Soviet state's 2014 gross domestic product, went missing from three local banks. In October Vlad Filat, leader of Liberal Democratic Party, PLDM, and former prime minister, was detained on suspicions of complicity in the bank fraud, and two weeks later the country's PLDM cabinet lost a no-confidence motion. Moldova has been without a government since then.
Russia must end its direct or indirect involvement in conflicts in Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine and stop interfering with their EU aspirations, the MEPs also stressed.
($=0.9224 euro)