Members of the European Parliament have criticised the OSCE over the organisation’s opinion of the election results in Moldova, which recently sparked protests in the capital Chisinau.

Click on the audio icon to listen to the report by John Beauchamp.

Polish MEP Jacek Saryusz-Wolski, who is also head of the external affairs committee of the European Parliament, has said that the OSCE results are “overly optimistic”, and wants to send a separate EU mission to the troubled country as soon as possible.

The European Parliament has its next plenary session in Strasbourg next week, where eventual decisions on an EU mission to check the numbers will be discussed, if not earlier.

Even though Jacek Saryusz-Wolski would like the elections to be taken again, especially before the inaugural meeting of the EU’s eastern partnership in Prague this May, Alina Radu from the Moldovan “Garda de Ziarul” weekly believes that this wouldn’t help, instead saying that the election results should be investigated as to the various types of supposed fraudulent activity that went on in the run-up and during the elections.