CHISINAU – The signature of the Association Agreement between Moldova and the European Union in 2014 was premature, and the people should make a decision on the matter, Moldovan President Igor Dodon said.
“I’ve said it and want to repeat it: first, the president has no powers to sever and cannot sever the Association Agreement with the European Union. Second, the signature of the Association Agreement with the European Union in 2014 was premature. And third, if the people vote for a party wishing to sever the Association Agreement in parliamentary elections, the parliament will make a decision,” Dodon said at a press conference on Jan. 24 evening.
“The president can neither sever the agreement nor resist this,” he said.
“The European Union has supported not the Moldovan people but its rulers” over the past years, he said.
“It has to be said bluntly that this was done for geopolitical considerations. This is why we see what’s happening, that is, growing corruption, mistrust in the authorities, and a decline in the number of European integration supporters from 70 percent in 2009 to 39 percent now, according to the last polls,” he said.
“Nobody is going to put an iron curtain along the River Prut,” he said.
“We should cooperate with both the West and the East. I am not either an anti-European president or a pro-Russian president, but I am a pro-Moldovan president,” Dodon said, adding that Chisinau’s agreement on facilitating visa regulations with the European Union remains valid.
“We should restore strategic partnership with the Russian Federation. And we will be doing all we can for this,” Dodon said.
As regards a draft memorandum on cooperation between Moldova and the Eurasian Economic Union, “this document does not run counter to the Association Agreement with the EU. I passed it today to the Head of the European Union Delegation to Moldova, with whom we discussed my upcoming visit to Brussels on February 6-7. I asked for the document to be passed to Brussels so that everyone could see that it does not conflict with the Association Agreement with the EU. The memorandum can be signed, it doesn’t have to be ratified by the parliament, and there’ll be no problems,” Dodon said.
