Moldovan Prime Minister Natalia Gavrilita denied accusations of lobbying the interests of the Ribnita Moldovan Metallurgical Plant.
It should be noted that earlier the European Union banned supplying Moldova with scrap metal that the Moldovan Metallurgical Plant needs and the Prime Minister asked Brussels to lift these restrictions, in which some human rights activists and the media saw lobbying for the interests of Transnistria. In particular, the human rights association Promo-Lex condemned Prime Minister's statements about Moldova's interest in resuming the import of scrap metal for the Moldovan Metallurgical Plant in Ribnita in the face of serious human rights violations in Transnistria. In response, Natalia Gavrilita noted that the allegations that the Moldovan government is not acting to protect human rights in the territory controlled by the Tiraspol authorities are not true. “This topic is constantly on the agenda of the Cabinet of Ministers and, in particular, the Bureau of Reintegration Policies. As for the scrap metal market, the inclusion of Moldova in the black list due to the activities of one company on the left bank of the Dniester (the Moldovan Metallurgical Plant) is an extremely dangerous precedent that we cannot accept. The EU decision came amid intentions to attract investment to the Moldovan metallurgical market, which would break the monopoly of the Ribnita plant on the use of scrap metal collected in Moldova, which hinders such investments. Decisions on the import of scrap metal will be adopted by the Moldovan authorities for each individual enterprise,” said Natalia Gavrilita. // 28.01.2022 - InfoMarket
