On April 1, 2021, Zinaida Greceanîi, the President of Moldova’s Parliament appealed to the Council of Europe. The Head of the Parliament complained that the Presidency would not consider the preference of the current legislature to vote for a new Government and would campaign for unmotivated snap elections. She called on the European authority to intervene in “restoring the rule of law and getting the country’s President back to constitutionalism.”

The Council of Europe responded to the letter the other day. The Parliament also published a press release, in which it does not quote directly the Council of Europe, but repeatedly quotes Zinaida Greceanîi. The Moldovan official appears at the end of the article in a silent video, in which she is moving her lips and gesticulating while looking at a telephone with the handset on the hook. According to the communiqué, in this video she is allegedly talking to Marija Pejčinović Burić, the Secretary General of the Council of Europe, motivating how dangerous early elections are for Moldova. We might have believed it if we could at least hear her voice if we had understood who she was talking to, and in what language, if we had heard the voice of the interlocutor. Otherwise, we have to question this until supporting evidence is displayed.

Strasbourg has one more answer for the Parliament in Chișinău: the GRECO report on the assessment of corruption in the member states of the Council of Europe. Moldova’s position in this report is a disgrace. The report presents the progress in fulfilling the commitments the Moldovan authorities took on to ensure the fight against corruption in legislation, justice, and prosecution.

According to the report, out of 18 recommendations for the Moldovan authorities, only four were fully implemented, 10 were partially implemented, and another four were not implemented at all.

It is worth pointing out that Parliament failed to implement almost all of the four recommendations on combating corruption. Of the three authorities covered by the GRECO report, the parliament implemented only 16.7% of the recommendations and 50% were not implemented at all. The judiciary implemented 28% of the recommendations in full and 71% in part, and the prosecution system has 22% unimplemented recommendations.

The appeal of the president of a corrupt parliament is most inappropriate given that this parliament has fulfilled only 16% of the anti-corruption recommendations offered by GRECO and the Council of Europe. They dared to tell those in Strasbourg that there is no urgency to dissolve the Parliament when, in fact, it should be dissolved immediately. At least, on the grounds that it failed to fulfill international commitments, particularly, the fight against corruption. Do Zinaida Greceanîi and most of her compromised people actually expect to receive international support in a case that reveals inefficiency in the area of integrity?

Here are several of the GRECO recommendations for the Parliament in Chișinău: 

• ensuring that all draft laws are subject to appropriate public consultations and parliamentary debate; 
• adoption of a deputy’s code of conduct, with integrity standards, and its public presentation; approving deputies’ activity norms that would regulate the interference and influence of third parties on them;
• the National Integrity Council to ensure effective control regarding conflicts of interest and incompatibilities of deputies;
•  ensuring measures to lift parliamentary immunity so that procedures do not impede the conduct of criminal investigations.

Which of these has been resolved? The Moldovan citizens will probably decide in the coming early elections.