Weekly Roundup
September 26 - Oct 1
Welcome back to Moldova Matters! In this weekly roundup we will check in with the top stories of the week in Politics and Economics. Subscribe to Moldova Matters to get our Weekly Roundup and other content sent right to your email! And consider becoming a paid subscriber to support our work at Moldova matters. For just $5 / month, the price of a nice coffee, you can support this work and help us expand into even better content!
Politics and Government
Forces are Being Mustered to Oust the Prosecutor General
The new government and President Sandu have made no secret of their plan to fire and replace Prosecutor General Stoyanoglo from his post and replace him with someone more committed to the fight against corruption. This process has been slow as the principle of prosecutorial independence has required a systematic and careful approach to fire and replace the current prosecutor without devolving into a purely political process. Firstl, Parliament passed a law allowing the High Council of Prosecutors to evaluate the sitting Prosecutor General and recommend dismissal in the case that their work is unsatisfactory. This Council previously was responsible for hiring the prosecutor but had no power to fire (no one did). With this law in place the Government has made moves to reshape the High Council of Prosecutors such that its membership is independent but purged of holdover representatives of the Plahotniuc or Dodon governments or any other special interests. This week, the Council has inched closer and closer to beginning practical evaluations with the Minister of Justice officially beginning the process at a meeting of the Council. But there have been setbacks as Prosecutor General Stoyanoglo challenges every single step in the courts and is fighting desperately to keep his job and the powers it represents. These efforts are not succeeding as the Constitutional Court again ruled against the latest of his many objections further clearing the way for his removal.
Foriegn Affairs
Moldova’s new government continues with rapid fire engagement on issues of foriegn affairs with European Partners. This week, Prime Minister Gavrilita traveled to Brussels and met with various officials including European Council President Charles Michel. There she discussed the Eastern Partnership Summit, justice reform, anti-corruption actions, bank fraud investigations and COVID-19. EU Officials expressed openness and support for Moldova and it’s “ambitious reform agenda.”
Speaking during the trip Prime Minister Gavrilita said “After a period of setbacks and a destructive wave of corruption, the citizens of the Republic of Moldova have clearly made a choice in favor of European values, democratic institutions, and a European standard of living. The EU is our key partner on the path of recovery and growth. Our partnership is strong, but I believe there is room for a greater deepening of interaction, strengthening of political, economic and sectoral cooperation.” They take away clearly being that the new Government has a clear mandate for reform and European integration but will need strong partners in this process to overcome many years of domestic troubles.
Also announced this week, the Euronest Parliamentary Assembly will be held in Moldova for the first time ever. Euronest is an inter-parliamentary forum between the European Parliament and national parliaments of Moldova, Ukraine, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia. PAS MP Dumitru Aliaba who leads Moldova’s representation at Euronest announced the news and said that "bringing Moldova out of isolation and back onto the map of Europe.” Finally, rounding out the European news, the German President made a trip to Moldova to meet with President Sandu and discuss bilateral affairs. He also announced a 10 million euro support package for Moldova from Germany.
America is also Engaging with the New Government
This week, Moldova received a delivery of military equipment from the United States designed to “increase the capabilities of the national army.” The delivery is the first of a 5 million dollar equipment purchase and represents 1 million dollars of supplies. The other 4 million will be paid and good delivered by the end of the year. The contents of these military planes is a “state secret.”
Russia was predictably not impressed with this delivery of military equipment saying that it will cause unease in Transnistria and represents a closer alignment of Moldova with Euro-Atlantic military structures. They claim this will make it more challenging to solve the Transnistria issue. They claim the delivery contains small arms, communications systems, light artillery systems and armored vehicles.
Meanwhile, in the US Congress ambassador nominee Kent Doyle Logsdon spoke before the Senate Foriegn Relations Committee stressing the US commitment to support the agenda of democratic reforms proposed by the current Moldovan government. He stressed the importance of fighting corruption and suggested that the US should put greater pressure on Russia to withdraw their troops and weapons caches from Transnistria in order to find a settlement to the question through the ongoing Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe OSCE lead talks. Recall that the appointment of a new US Ambassador has been held up for months by Ted Cruz in an attempt to force the Biden Administration to change course on the entirely unrelated Nord Stream 2 sanctions.
COVID-19 Update
The 3rd Wave is now well underway in Moldova with a recorded 7 day average 1097 cases and 18 deaths daily. Unfortunately, it appears we’re going to be keeping these charts around for a while as we track the evolution of this wave.
In order to cope with the additional stress on the health system, Chisinau is adding 300 beds to the Moldexpo emergency health facility. This week, the Minister of Health visited this temporary facility where Christmas fairs and other events were held pre-pandemic. She said that the facility is truly operating like a wartime field hospital noting "There is pain everywhere. From wrapped corpses already awaiting removal, to the big eyes of an ambulance nurse who brought in a patient." The Minister committed to a plan to add more beds in other municipal hospitals in order to try and spread out the load and take pressure off of MoldExpo.
Status of Restrictions
With new restrictions coming into place October 1st, concerts are now being canceled in Chisinau with shows by Okean Elzy, Laura Pergolizzi and the Balkan Nights festival postponed pending reschedule dates with the artists. Starting October 1st, all restaurants will be restricted to 50% capacity indoors and require guests to present vaccine certificates, negative tests or proof of recent recovery from the virus in order to dine. When asked how this will work, the Prime Minister noted that the police cannot be in every restaurant all the time but that they will be checking. She said that it is the responsibility of employers to verify these certificates.
Now, as a restaurant owner, this author thinks that a lot more clarification is needed. Firstly, data protection and privacy laws make it very unclear how you can make these checks. Should employers verify the name on certificates against identification cards? Do they have a right to demand identification cards? Should the certificates be scanned to verify? Moldova’s digital certificates have a scannable QR code but the paper certificates do not. What is the policy around these checks more generally? Unfortunately, the private sector is being left to answer many questions for itself and the mechanisms for enforcement are unclear. A situation that often leads to abuse. As before, we’ll just have to wait and see how it plays out.
Economic News
A New National Industry… Higher Education??
Think tank IDIS Viitorul has calculated that Moldova earns about $100 million dollars per year from foriegn students studying at local universities. Currently, there are around 4600 students attending classes in Moldova each year compared to 1200 10 years ago. IDIS Viitorul experts note that $100 million is roughly the same amount Moldova earns on the export of wine each year. The study explains that Moldova has never made any real attempt to attract foriegn students at all and suggests doing so as an economic priority. Further, it notes that at peak attendance 29,600 local students graduated university in 2008. In 2015 it was only 14,600 and the numbers keep falling yearly. Foriegn students can be a major plus for the economy and help fill in for the lack of local students. Of the 4600 students in the last year for which there is data, 2125 were from Romania, 2040 from Israel, 605 from India, 600 from Ukraine, 533 from Syria, 302 from Jordan and 190 from Turkey.
Rebuilding the Railroad
President Sandu this week signed a decree initiating the borrowing process for 24 million euros to rehabilitate sections of the national railroad. The loan comes from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development EBRD and will be used to repair and modernize critical railway links in the south of the country linking the port of Giurgiulesti to economic hubs. As we discussed in past Weekly Roundups, the government is also exploring partial privatizations of the national railroad as a mechanism of attracting investment and modernizing the services more broadly.
Crime and Corruption Updates
Raids at the Airport
This week, the National Anti Corruption Center CNA and Security and Information Service SIS raided the Chisinau airport and arrested 13 customs and border police officers. The police officers were caught on security cameras asking or extorting bribes of 50 to 100 euros from travelers in order to accept fake COVID tests or allow a person to bypass the self isolation regime. In some cases, people would themselves offer the bribes calling it “money for tea” to get the police to look the other way. While videos were released there has been no reporting about whether the travelers bribing the police and carrying fake COVID tests will also be arrested and charged.
Ending on a High Note!
Here we go again… it’s time to talk about Football Club Sheriff from Tiraspol. This week Sheriff upset Real Madrid in their second game of the group round of the Champions League. At first glance this is a great story for Moldova. A Cinderella story for the ages where a team with a player budget of 12.38 million euros beats a team with a payroll budget of 793.5 million euros. Publicly Moldovan politicians are congratulating Sheriff with the President saying “I congratulate the team on this success and wish them good luck in the next matches. The Transnistrian conflict is a very complex issue that we are working on. As we discussed with the [German] president today, this topic includes reaffirming our position in the search for a peaceful, diplomatic solution that will lead to the creation of a functional state”
Meanwhile, the international press reacted to this stunning upset with lots of stories about the improbable success of Sheriff. But in Moldova, this is a much more complicated story. Sheriff does not consider itself as representing Moldova whatsoever. The team is powered by the corruption of Transestrian oligarchs and arguably paid for with money stolen from Moldova through various gas transit schemes. Not to mention money stolen from the residents of Transnistria. So I hesitate to say this is a high note… more like an interesting but complicated one. Corruption in soccer is no new story but watching a team powered solely by corruption succeeding in the Champions league is pretty disheartening. Perhaps more people will find Moldova on the map this week than could last week but not for a very good reason.
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