Eric Byrne (Dublin South Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The next slide shows images of how the parties campaign. The party on the right is the PLDM, Pro-EU Liberal Democrats, the second largest party that got 20% of the vote. The banners are those of the Patria party, which was struck off.

On the next slide, we see the Socialist Party. In the West, we think of socialists as social democrats but in Moldova, this is the most pro-Russian party in the campaign and one can see the image of Mr. Putin on its campaigning literature. This party won the election achieving 20.5% of the vote and winning 25 seats. One clearly sees the geopolitical issues at play, as the Socialist Party is linked to the Russian Federation.

The next slide shows the Communist Party that came third, winning 21 seats and achieving 17% of the vote.

In summary, the Socialist Party is the largest party in Moldova. There were two electoral blocs, an electoral bloc, called Moldova's choice for the Customs Union Russia. There was a clash between the parties that supported the Customs Union and those that supported the European Union.

The next slide has a heading unify the family of NATO and EU and is the bloc in favour of the EU. This party won 13 seats and was the fifth largest party in the election.

The next slide shows the reformed liberal party which received nearly 2% of the vote, which was not sufficient to do anything.

The next slide shows an interesting party. It is officially affiliated to the socialist group in Europe, they claim to be social democrats, now there were other parties of social democrats in the election. The group in this slide did quite well, coming fourth. It achieved 15.8% of the vote winning 19 seats. There were complaints about this party, which I will read out. The complaint was that the General Media Group, a company associated with the deputy chairman of the PDM - who was also a candidate in the election - controls four out of the five national television stations. He also controls the largest advertising company in Moldova and therefore it was alleged that he was given a disproportionate amount of air time by his own stations.

The next slide has an image of the Mafia, which plays a role in Moldova. This was an anti-Mafia party that achieved 1.7% of the vote.

The following slide is the most important as it shows the area of conflict. It shows Moldova but it also shows that the problem area of Transnistria has a demarcated area on both sides of the River Dniester. The Russians patrol it. Transnistria is officially part of Moldova. It has broken away from Moldova but the Moldovans want to reunite it with Moldova. The Russians are involved. Given the political problems in the area, and what happened in Ukraine, Moldova would have some concerns about interference in its desire to progress towards Europe.

In conclusion, Moldova is a fascinating country. It produces wonderful wine. We will have a wine competition one day to see if those who say it is better than wine from the Georgian Republic are correct.

During the Irish Presidency we particularly targeted Transnistria as a region. We had made some progress in getting people to talk around the table.

Let us hope that very soon Moldova will have a government. In this context what is interesting is that the Communist Party, unlike the Socialist Party which is pro-Russian, is more Moldovan nationalist and prefers to represent Moldova as a nation, not in favour of Europe or not in favour of the Russian Federation. We must wait to see what happens.

Thank you, Vice Chairman