The Republic of Moldova has a new government: on Friday, the parliament of the south-eastern European country confirmed the 43-year-old former finance minister Natalia Gavrilita as the new prime minister.
Gavrilita is considered an ally of President Maia Sandu, who is pursuing an ambitious reform course and wants to bring her country closer to the EU.
61 of the 101 members of parliament in Chisinau supported Gavrilita, who trained at the renowned Harvard University on Friday. When presenting her program, the new Prime Minister promised to fight corruption and poverty and to reform the judiciary. "For 30 years the political class has used state structures to enrich itself," said Gavrilita.
Moldova is one of the poorest countries in Europe. In the past few years, the former Soviet republic, lying between Ukraine and Romania, has been shaken by several corruption scandals. The country plunged into a deep crisis when the equivalent of around 850,000 euros disappeared in 2014, which had been managed by three large banks. The 2.6 million inhabitants were also long divided over the question of whether the country should strive for closer ties with the EU or whether it should look to Moscow decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
When the current President Sandu won the election last November against the pro-Russian Igor Dodon, his party in parliament ensured that a government could not be formed. In April, Sandu succeeded in dissolving parliament. In the parliamentary elections in July, their center-right party PAS prevailed as the strongest force with more than 52 percent of the vote.