Eurasia Press & News
The Moldovan parliament on Friday approved a new pro-Western government headed by veteran diplomat Iurie Leanca to end the politically volatile ex-Soviet state’s latest political crisis and set it on a course to EU membership.
Fifty-seven out of 101 deputies in parliament voted to approve the appointment of Leanca as prime minister with the backing of a new pro-EU liberal ruling party coalition in a vote boycotted by the opposition Communists.
The vote in the early hours of the morning came after President Nicolae Timofti urged deputies to “join forces, set aside personal ambitions and form a government which will allow Moldova to overcome crisis and continue a path of European integration.”
“I am sure that we have no other path. Moldova must become part of the family of European peoples,” he added.
The new government contains five new ministers but the rest are unchanged from the previous ruling liberal coalition and contains several champions of EU integration for Moldova.
The new foreign minister Natalia Gherman is the daughter of Moldova’s first post-independence president Mircea Snegur.
The new cabinet vows in its programme “to make the process of Moldova’s integration with the European Union irreversible”. It aims to sign an association agreement with the EU, seen as the first step to membership.
“All this is possible in circumstances of political stability and hard obligations to let European standards take root in the areas of democracy and the rule of law,” said Leanca.
