Moldova’s European integration process can serve as a catalyst for the reintegration of Transnistria, with the two processes running at different “speeds”, according to the Speaker of Moldova’s parliament, Igor Grosu.
The European integration process can serve as “a catalyst for the reintegration of Transnistria”, Grosu said in an interview with the Romanian national press agency Agerpres.
He added that Chisinau had convinced its partners that the European integration and Transnistria reintegration are “two different processes that move at different speeds”.
“There are precedents, and Josep Borrell mentioned in his last visit to Chisinau that European integration cannot be conditioned on the resolution of the Transnistrian conflict”, Grosu said.
Moreover, he added, “In the case of the Transnistria conflict, quick actions could be counterproductive”.
Following the European Commission’s verbal interim update on enlargement in June, Moldova’s main concern is now centred around justice reform, with Grosu admitting that Moldova lacks qualified experts capable of leading the negotiation process.
According to studies, since the proclamation of independence in 1991, Moldova has lost one and a half million people out of the four-million-strong population it had at the time of separation from the Soviet Union. Over 1.3 million Moldovans have gained Romanian citizenship.
But now Romanians experts are obtaining Moldovan citizenship to work within governmental institutions in Chisinau. One of them is Daniel-Marius Staicu, an expert in investigating economic and financial crime and preventing and combating money laundering and terrorist financing.
From 2018 to 2020, he was the president of Romania’s National Office for Prevention and Combating Money Laundering.
On 11 November last year, President Maia Sandu granted him Moldovan citizenship. A few weeks later, on 30 November, Staicu was appointed director of the Prevention and Combating of Money Laundering Office.
“There are other Romanian colleagues active in other consulting missions of the European Union, but we want to expand such collaboration”, Grosu added.
(Cătălina Mihai | EURACTIV.ro)
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