Foreign Policy Association together with Friedrich­Ebert-Stiftung offer you a newsletter on foreign policy and European integration issues of the Republic of Moldova. The newsletter is part of the “Foreign Policy Dialogue” joint Project. NEWSLETTER MONTHLY BULLETIN OCTOMBER 2020 NR.10(176) Synthesis and Foreign Policy Debates The newsletter is developed by Sorina Ştefârţă, editor-coordinator TOPICS OF THE EDITION: 1. Valentina Barca, freelance consultant in social protection: “A society is only as strong as its weakest link” 2. Editorial by Adrian Lupușor, executive director of Expert-Grup: “MACRO 2020, looking for post-crisis solutions” 3. Marcel Spatari, economist, director of Syndex Romania: “Also in this crisis our main problem has been lack of strategic vision” 4. Expert Opinion. “State of the Country Report 2020: an edition of pandemic” News in brief The Republic of Moldova is lagging behind in the implementation of the Association Agreement with the European Union. Six years after the document was signed, the Moldovan authorities have failed to make significant progress: key institutions remain fragile, the economy is on the verge of collapse, and political games continue to be played behind the scenes. Thus, the country’s justice, freedom and security stand to lose. These are the conclusions of the alternative Report “Six years of the Association Agreement implementation”, produced by the Institute for European Policies and Reforms. The idea was supported during the presentation of the Report by the EU Ambassador to the Republic of Moldova, Peter Michalko.“I think we can rather talk about stagnation, and in some cases about regress. Regarding the justice reform, not only there is no vision, but there are changes in the legislation, either without public discussions, as it has been the case of the Law on Prosecution, or in contradiction with the recommendations of the Venice Commission, as in the case of the new composition of the SCM”, said Michalko. According to the European official, the failure is due to the lack of political will in this direction. The Embassies of the Republic of Moldova in Austria, France and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland will get a person in charge of commercial and economic services. In October, the government approved the additional staff for these embassies. The diplomats will have the mission to actively promote the investment opportunities offered by our country and thus to capitalize on the trade and economic relations.“These economic offices that we already have under several embassies need to work more efficiently, their main task being to attract foreign investors for the 18 industrial platforms that we are creating in the districts. Each of our economic representatives has to come up with investors, otherwise, the resources we spend on those platforms are useless”, mentioned the Prime Minister Ion Chicu. He asked the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and European Integration to regularly check the efficiency of those offices and inform the society about the results achieved. The developments in the Transnistrian settlement process have been the central topic of the six-monthly activity report of the OSCE Mission to Moldova, presented recently at the OSCE Permanent Council. There have been mentioned Tiraspol’s unilateral actions aimed at installing illegal checkpoints along the administrative line, restricting free movement and degradation of the human rights situation in the region, which led to a critical reaction in the Council. Chisinau reiterated its concern about the destructive nature of Tiraspol’s premeditated actions, which affect the political climate in the“5+ 2” negotiation process, jeopardizes the fulfilment of the commitments under the “Berlin plus package”, erodes the existing mechanism of peace maintenance and drastically reduces the possibility of interaction in other areas. The international partners, in turn, have called on Tiraspol to remove the illegal checkpoints, to ensure free movement, to respect human rights and to release persons in illegal detention, to ensure the full exercise of property rights and education, to cooperate in the implementation of measures aimed at preventing and combating the COVID-19 pandemic. MACRO 2020: It's time to learn lessons from crises Sorina Ștefârță The eighth edition of the MACRO International Conference organised on 20 October 2020 by the Independent Analytical Center“Expert-Grup” and Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung Moldova(FES) was atypical only in form. Like most things happening in the current pandemic year, this event has adopted a hybrid format - with some of the guests physically present and the others, together with the audience, following the event virtually. However, the topics addressed by this year’s MACRO edition were not at all virtual (abbreviation:“Moldova: Assessing Country Risks and Opportunities”. The tone has been given by the conference title ­How to strengthen the economic and social resilience to crises. Lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic... The purpose of the current edition of the Conference was to identify the main economic and social problems caused by the pandemic crisis, which has overlapped this year with a severe drought, and to find solutions to increase the Monthly Bulletin, Nr. 10(175), octomber 2020 64, Sciusev str. MD-2012, Chisinau, Republic of Moldova, Tel-Fax:+373 22 21 09 86 Website: www.ape.md E-mail: office@ape.md