The Moldovan authorities continue their course of breaking ties with the CIS, the post-Soviet bloc the republic has been a member of since 1994. On Thursday, the Moldovan parliament approved the withdrawal from the CIS Interparliamentary Assembly, a body that has been operating since the founding of the commonwealth and whose main task is to harmonize the legislation of member states.
According to TASS, the convention on the CIS Interparliamentary Assembly, signed in Minsk in 1995, was denounced after the government submitted a relevant bill to the Moldovan parliament.
The document says that because of the war in Ukraine, the IPU is unable to fulfill its main functions – to protect human rights, to monitor the development of democracy and to fight security threats. Chisinau recalled its ambassador to the assembly back in February.
A total of several dozen agreements concluded by Moldova within the CIS are under revision and may be torn up, Foreign and European Integration Minister Nicu Popescu said in February.
Chisinau intends to withdraw from 20 agreements under the Interior Ministry alone, and is revising more than 300 in total. Moldova’s goal is EU membership, and “all foreign policy goals and participation in international organizations will be subordinated to European integration”, Popescu said.
Since the start of the war in Ukraine, Moldovan representatives have stopped participating at the CIS level and are considering leaving the commonwealth. According to Popescu, the organization is becoming “less and less relevant” and its economic benefits are questionable: free trade does not work for Chisinau, there have been problems with access to goods since 2006, and there are also trade restrictions on exports.
Currently, Chisinau is analyzing the feasibility of staying in the Commonwealth, Popescu said.
Moldova has already denounced the agreements on exchange of information on the protection of the CIS external borders, on common conditions for the supply of goods, on cooperation in the field of prevention and liquidation of the consequences of emergencies, on the activity of the Interstate TV and Radio Company “Mir”. On 13 July, the government decided to denounce two more agreements: on ensuring parallel operation of electric power systems and on electricity transit.
The CIS charter, adopted in late 1993, provides for a procedure of withdrawal from the organization. To do so, a state must send a written notification to the depositary of the Charter one year prior to withdrawal. Georgia went through this procedure in 2008-2009 and left the CIS.
