Moldovan PM, speaker boycotted meeting of Supreme Security Council

Chisinau, 7 March /MOLDPRES/- Prime Minister Pavel Filip and Parliament Speaker Andrian Candu boycotted today the meeting of the Supreme Security Council (CSS), chaired by President Igor Dodon.

At the same time, attending the event were not Defense Minister Eugen Sturza, Interior Minister Alexandru Jizdan, Liberal MP Roman Botan and representative of the Intelligence and Security Service.

Dodon said he had previously decided to change the composition of the CSS in order not to cancel the meeting due to lack of quorum.

The official said that five topics were discussed at the meeting today. “We talked about the Kroll 2 report and the current situation on “the theft of billion”. In this respect, the governor of the National Bank of Moldova and Prosecutor General unveiled a report. I was informed that BNM got the Kroll 2 report yesterday. The CSS’s recommendation to the BNM was that the report be presented at the council meeting. The governor said he has no right to expose it to CSS members, and will talk to Kroll representatives to get permission to do so. Also, I was informed that so far, around one billion lei had been recovered and seizures were set on goods worth 3 billion, so that about 4 billion lei will be recovered this year,” Dodon said.

The president noted that the CSS members appreciated the developments on the Transnistrian conflict negotiations and recommended negotiators to continue their actions.

“Another topic was related to the National Defense Strategy, which was approved by the government in late 2017. Unfortunately, the government members were not present at the meeting to unveil a report on the matter, so we will have discussions on this issue. Also, we talked about attempts to liquidate the statehood coming from local authorities by approving statements on unification. Most CSS members condemn the decisions, so I proposed to amend legislation by including criminal liability provisions for such actions. Subsequently, the amendments will be proposed to parliament,” he said.

Also, the annual agenda of CSS meetings was established today. It was approved at the proposal of the state institutions, but later it can be changed.

The CSS meetings will be held quarterly. Today, six of the 18 members of CSS did not attend the meeting.

Democrat leader Vlad Plahotniuc announced yesterday that the members of government and parliament will not attend the today’s meeting of the CSS. The decision to boycott the meeting was taken at the weekly meeting of the Democratic Party of Moldova in protest against the lack of coordination between presidency and government.

(Reporter A. Ciobanu, editor A. Răileanu)