Mr. Chairman,

Madame Secretary General,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is a great privilege and honor to take part for the first time in the Ministerial Session of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe.

The COVID-19 pandemic forced us to carry out this Session through a videoconference – a reality which has required adapting quickly in order to maintain a vivid activity of our Organization.

Yet, 2020 is an anniversary year for several historical milestones for global peace and stability and especially for human rights. It is the 75th anniversary of the United Nations, the 70th anniversary of the European Convention on Human Rights and the 25th anniversary of the Republic of Moldova’s accession to the Council of Europe.

Over the past two decades, the Council of Europe has proven to be a trusted partner for the Republic of Moldova and through its bodies it contributed to the process of forming Moldova as a state.

Despite the pandemic, during 2020 our common efforts were particularly focused on our key priority area of cooperation: the justice sector reform.

In this regard, we are grateful to the Secretary General for the readiness to set up a High-level Working Group on Justice which was instrumental in advancing the reform process.

I would like to commend the tireless remote work of this Group. Now we can inform about one of its first results, namely the recent adoption of the Strategy and the Action Plan in the justice sector.

In October we also managed to hold online the final Steering Committee meeting for the implementation of the current Action Plan 2017-2020 and I would like to express our gratitude to the Council, the EU and the Member States for their assistance and voluntary contributions.

Equally, we would like to thank the Office of the Directorate General for Programs for finalizing the work on the new Action Plan 2021-2024.

Another important element of our cooperation resides in the implementation of the European Court’s judgements, including in cases originating from the transnistrian region of the Republic of Moldova.

Regretfully, the Tiraspol administration instrumentalized the Covid-19 pandemic in order to advance its political interests, imposing new barriers and systematically violating the human rights of the residents in the region.

We appreciate the efforts of the Council of Europe to ensure full access of the monitoring bodies to the entire territories of the Member States, thus not leaving any grey areas in Europe unnoticed.

Nevertheless, we believe more attention should be drawn to the human rights violations in the Transnistrian region, including to the situation of the Latin-script schools.

We firmly believe that in this particular case, we should refrain from politicizing the children's rights in the conflict areas.

Dear colleagues,

We are deeply concerned by the perpetuation of the conflicts, especially in the context of the recent developments in the region.

All confrontations between member states leading to loss of lives should stop and the political dialogue resumed as soon as possible.

It is our strong belief that the Council of Europe must remain committed in its unwavering support to our principled position that any political solution must be in strict conformity with the norms and principles of international law, while fully respecting the territorial integrity, sovereignty, independence and inviolability of internationally recognized borders.

Madame Secretary General,

In closing, we appreciate the efforts in preparing the Annual Report „Multilateralism 2020” and commend the Council’s rapid and extensive response on standards compliance and intergovernmental co-operation, while taking the lead in defending effective multilateralism.

In this regard, we strongly support the priority for developing a new legally binding instrument related to the Artificial Intelligence and the approach for addressing trafficking in human beings for the purpose of labor exploitation.

Equally, we agree that the Council should take the lead in defending effective multilateralism along with our common standards.

Thank you for your attention.