The Institute for European Policies and Reforms (IPRE), the Independent Think Tank “Expert-Grup” and the Legal Resources Centre from Moldova (LRCM), within the #ThinkTanks4EUMembership initiative and in cooperation with the Friedrich Ebert Foundation in the Republic of Moldova, presented on Thursday, July 20, 2023, during the press conference, the second Shadow Report on the implementation of the Moldova’s Action Plan for the implementation of the 9 steps of the European Commission in the context of Moldova’s EU membership application.

The #MoldovaEUCandidateCheck report reflects the main progress, shortcomings and priorities revised and updated assessment for the period 1 July 2022 to 30 June 2023. The experts of the three organizations concluded that, by June 30, 2023, most of the planed actions have been fulfilled, with the overall implementation score of 4.24 points out of the maximum of 5 points. Thus, out of 60 actions corresponding to 9 measures provided by the authorities in the Action Plan: 24 actions (40%) have been completed, 25 actions (41.66%) have been implemented with some reservations, 10 actions (16,66%) are still to be implemented, and 1 action (1.67%) has been implemented with substantial reservations.

According to the authors, the best rating – 5 points – is attributed to the public finance management reform (commitment 7), where all actions have been completed.

Commitment 2 related to the implementation of OSCE/ODIHR recommendations in the field of electoral reform was also completed earlier being assessed in the first report with 4 points out of 5. Other actions have not been assessed given that European Commission in its mid-term review in May 2023 considered this condition completed. However, the level of implementation of Venice Commission recommendations was reflected in our 2nd Report under the 1st step/commitment (justice reform).

A visible a progress has been registered in the area of human rights (commitment 9) with 4.75 points, followed by cooperation with civil society (commitment 8) with 4.6 points out of 5. In both areas, all actions have been implemented and some with minor shortcomings. Also, the area of combating organised crime (commitment 5) was assessed with 4.35 points, most actions are implemented, two to be completed.

Some progress was noted in the area of public administration reform (commitment 6), justice reform (commitment 1), both being assessed with 4 out of 5 points, meaning that most of the planned actions were implemented with some insignificant shortcomings. In both cases at least one key action needs to be completed, namely the full functionality of the SCM and SPC in the case of justice reform, and the strengthening of administrative capacity in the field of public administration reform.

In addition, the authorities need to further advance implementation actions on combating corruption (commitment 3) and de-oligarchization (commitment 4), which by end of June 2023 scored 3.77 and 3.7 points, respectively. As a matter of priority in these areas should be clarified the competences between NAC and APO, also APO’s capacities need to be strengthened with a separate budget and human resources to effectively expedite on investigations of high-profile corruption and ensure the implementation of the Plan of measures on de-oligarchisation.

It has to be recalled, that on April 13, 2023, the first Shadow Report #MoldovaEUCandidateCheck was published, which reflected the results of the initial assessments for the period July 1, 2022 to March 31, 2023. According to the previous report, the overall implementation score of the 9 septs was 3.8 out of 5 points.

The Romanian and English online versions of the second #MoldovaEUCandidateCheck Report as well as the results of the detailed monitoring are reflected in the interactive dashboard available on the http://www.euromonitor.md/ as well as on www.ipre.md, www.expert-grup.org and www.crjm.org.