Russia media reports say official Chisinau has decided to withdraw from the Inter-Parliamentary Assembly of the Commonwealth of Independent States (IPA CIS), initiating the appropriate procedure. This was stated by top Moldova lawmaker Igor Grosu.
RIA Novosti cited the Moldovan parliamentary speaker Igor Grosu, who is also the leader of the ruling Action and Solidarity Party of Moldova, as saying that they decided to make a decision to withdraw from the CIS IPA. “This is the first step, we will take other steps at the government and parliament levels,” top Moldovan lawmaker noted.
According to TASS, Grosu said at a briefing today that CIS institutions were useless for Moldova.
Grosu reportedly made the decision after consultations with the country’s citizenry, members of the ruling Party of Action and Solidarity, and President Maia Sandu. Grosu described Russia’s activities in Ukraine as "illegal" and accused Moscow of pursuing an "unfriendly" policy toward Chisinau.
At the next meeting of the parliament’s standing bureau, Grosu will suggest that lawmakers formally request that Prime Minister Dorin Recean prepare a bill that would denounce the Convention on the CIS Inter-Parliamentary Assembly.
According to RIA Novosti, State Secretary of the Government of Moldova Artur Mizha on April 28 said that Chisinau plans to terminate many agreements with the CIS in the near future. On the same day, the Moldovan parliament reportedly approved in the first reading a resolution on withdrawing from the agreements on the functioning of the Mir television and radio company.
TASS says Chisinau’s stance toward the CIS began to shift radically after Sandu won the 2020 presidential election. To date, she has not attended a single CIS summit.
The IPA CIS is a parliamentary assembly for delegations from the national parliaments of the member countries of the CIS. The IPA CIS was established on March 27, 1992 in Almaty (Kazakhstan) under the terms of the Agreement signed by Heads of founding parliaments. On May 26, 1995, CIS leaders signed the Convention on the Inter-Parliamentary Assembly of Member Nations of the Commonwealth of Independent States] eventually ratified by nine CIS parliaments. The overarching mission is law-making and alignment of national laws in the CIS. The IPA is housed in the Tauride Palace in a historical landmark of Saint Petersburg.
The IPA CIS acts as the consultative parliamentary body of the CIS established to discuss problems of parliamentary cooperation. Its activity concentrates on the development of the model legislation, which could then be implemented by the Member States on the voluntary basis, and serve as a tool of dissemination of the best practices across the CIS. The Assembly is involved in the development of integration processes in the CIS. The IPA CIS regularly hosts specialized conferences, seminars and symposiums, which provide a platform for debate of the governmental and non-governmental actors. Another mission of the IPA CIS is election monitoring.
