- Title: MOLDOVA-PREMIER Crisis-hit Moldova narrowly approves new prime minister
- Date: 31st July 2015
- Summary: TIMOFTI, STRELET AND NEWLY SWORN IN MINISTERS STANDING FOR FAMILY PHOTO
- Embargoed: 15th August 2015 13:00
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- Topics: General
- Reuters ID: LVA6KMTKZ9ZTV4BBHFBXAUO73F3O
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: Moldova's parliament voted in legislator and businessman Valeriu Strelet as prime minister by the slimmest of margins on Thursday (July 30) and approved his pro-Europe government after he pledged to try to extricate the country from financial crisis.
A three-party, pro-European Union alliance, which holds a slender majority in the 101-seat assembly, mustered the 52 votes needed to secure Strelet's approval.
The post of prime minister has been vacant in the former Soviet republic since June 12, when Chiril Gaburici stepped down after just over 100 days in office following allegations that his school diplomas were fake.
Strelet, speaking before the vote, said he and his government team were "firmly determined to redress the situation and move the country forward".
The 45-year-old also said his team would seek closer ties to the European Union.
"As to foreign policy, security and defence: the government undertakes to implement fundamental and ambitious objectives, such as successful implementation of the association agenda in order to obtain the status of an EU candidate before the next ordinary parliamentary poll," he said.
Strelet, outlining his programme to parliament, referred specifically to the disappearance of $1 billion from the banking system - roughly equivalent to one eighth of Moldova's gross domestic budget - through loans to unidentified recipients.
Sandwiched between Ukraine and EU member Romania, Moldova, which has a population of 3.5 million, embarked on a pro-Europe course in 2009 despite its reliance on Russian energy supplies and the presence of a pro-Russian, self-proclaimed statelet called Transdniestria within its borders.
But it has continued to be dogged by economic mismanagement and corruption.
In one of Europe's poorest countries, where the average salary is $200 a month, the banking scandal brought thousands out on to the streets in protest and cast a shadow over its pro-Europe leaders' record in office.
The crisis around the missing cash and the political instability it has generated are holding up assistance from the International Monetary Fund and other lenders.
Economic turbulence in Russia, Moldova's main trading partner, has added to its woes, with the national currency losing 40 percent of its value against the dollar this year.
Earlier on Thursday, the central bank raised its main interest rate to 17.5 percent from 15.5 percent in a further bid to control inflation - the fifth rate increase this year.
In June, inflation reached 8.3 percent year-on-year against a central bank target of 5 percent.
Speaking at the swearing-in ceremony on Thursday, Moldova's President Nicolae Timofti said economic reforms must be pushed through by the new parliament.
"The started reforms should continue: in justice, education, economy and other fields. The parliamentary majority has a duty to support government's initiatives within the process of European reforms and thus ensure a sound cooperation that should exist between the legislative and executive branches."
Strelet said revitalising the economy was a priority.
"Our task is to take care of the Moldovan people, create conditions for a rise in wages, create conditions for those mostly affected by the spike in tariffs and other setbacks of the economic crisis so that they would not be hit too hard by this shock."
A three-party Alliance for European Integration composed of liberal democrats, liberals and democrats kept their slender majority in an election last November despite a strong showing by the socialists, who favour close economic ties with Russia rather than with the EU.
But the country plunged almost immediately into crisis as it emerged that $1 billion had disappeared from Banca de Economii, Banca Sociala and Unibank.
Strelet, who runs a fertiliser import company, emerged as a compromise candidate after the initial choice, former education minister Maia Sandu, divided the coalition by demanding the dismissal of the state prosecutor and the head of the national bank as her price for taking the job. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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