Weekly Roundup: New Year, a Slow News Week (and Lions)

January 5th, 2024

Moldova Greets 2024

Sandwiched between new and old Christmas, New Year in Moldova is the main event of most families’ holiday seasons. It is a time for family, exchanging gifts, New Years trees (called Christmas trees in the west) and often all night parties after family events conclude. It is traditional for the President to make a New Year’s address which airs at midnight and which many families watch at home.

President Sandu’s address this year focused on the struggles and hopes of the nation and citizens looking ahead to 2024. The entirety of the short speech is worth reading, but we’re taking an excerpt here that highlights the main themes:

“Dear fellow citizens!

We end this year with good news - a historic decision for our country. And we enter the New Year 2024 with hope!

The decision of the European Union to begin accession negotiations for the Republic of Moldova not only represents hope for a better future for all Moldovans, but also the culmination of our joint efforts. This is the result not only of the actions taken last year, but of the work of all generations up to the present day, the struggle for the independence and freedom of our parents and the older generation.

We end this year aware of the challenges we face, but we are hopeful. It often seemed that fate was against our country. But in the most difficult times, it was hope that kept us together. And now, after 30 years of waiting, we see that a new page is opening in the history of our state. I am not saying that starting accession negotiations will automatically solve all problems. Only we ourselves, being united and strong, are able to cope with the problems of our society - one after another. And I say with all confidence that Moldova is entering the New Year with hope!

….

We do not choose the country in which we were born. And in the same way, we do not choose our children or families. However, we love them and do everything for them. Love for children, for family, for the nation exists - despite the challenges that we overcome. And this gives us the strength to do everything that depends on us to make life better.

Sometimes we fail, sometimes we win, but the value of these moments is much greater when we experience them all together. We are now at a crossroads. And it is useful for all of us to ask ourselves the question: “What will we lose if we stop halfway?” This is because we know for sure that we don’t want to go back to the past, and we don’t want to stand still. Yes, there will still be difficulties on our way, but there will also be victories. And it is important that each of us - where he is - continues to believe, fight, and work. Let's make sure that we are not just observers of our history, but its creators.

We believe in Moldova, and this unites us!

In these last minutes of a difficult year, in which we, however, lived, full of hope, I urge you and wish you to find as many reasons for joy and pride as possible for your own achievements, for the successes of your loved ones - and for the successes of all of Moldova. After all, sometimes, surrounded by worries, we forget about joys.

Let's remember what unites us and what makes us happy - hope for success, gratitude to the people who are next to us, and this confidence that together we can build a decent and peaceful future for all the children of Moldova.

Happy New Year, Moldova!”

Screenshot from the President’s broadcast, accessed via Newsmaker

The tradition of a national Presidential address at the New Year comes from the Soviet period and remains a major event in Russia where much is read into Putin’s address. This year, Putin’s remarks were not broadcast in Moldova as they have been in the past, but the speech was readily available online. In it, Putin appeared with the Kremlin as a backdrop and gave a fairly typical speech calling together the Russian nation and stressing societies’ support for the troops in the field. No mention of Ukraine or direct reference to the war was made. This contrasted sharply with last year’s address where he appeared with Russian “soldiers” and firmly centered the “special military operation” in his remarks.

For her part, President Sandu’s speech can be seen as a foreshadowing of the work and campaigns of the year to come. Its central theme of hope, and of hope being rewarded after hard work and struggle, is likely to figure centrally in next year’s Presidential campaign and referendum.

Political News

In spite of this being among the slowest news weeks of the year, we have a few updates including a few stories that we didn’t get to check in with before the new year.

• The State of Emergency ended on December 30th. After 11 extensions starting on February 24th, 2022 the government has not sought to renew the state of emergency. The government stated that it has adopted legislation and regulation sufficient to deal with the ongoing crises in security, energy, hybrid warfare and Russian propaganda without emergency powers. Of the 12 TV stations primarily affiliated with Shor that were blocked via emergency powers, regulators have announced that none will be returning to the air.

• The Ministry of Education proposes university consolidation. The Ministry of Education has proposed that the State University of Moldova USM absorb State University of Physical Culture and Sports USEFS. USEFS has around 1800 students studying to be gym teachers, coaches and athletic trainers. USM is a larger school with around 11,000 students and will absorb the programs of the smaller university while allowing for broader class opportunities for former USEFS students. Moldovan universities are losing students at a rate of around 8% per year and the move is likely designed to consolidate administrative budgets and bulk up the schools in the face of stiff competition.

• Mayor Ceban cancels after school programs and free school lunches for children in need. The mayor claims that the city of Chisinau is under unprecedented “financial pressure” from the central government and has threatened to sue asking for parliament to cover the budget shortfall. While the city has not published a 2024 budget, the mayor is claiming that problems come from nationally mandated salary increases (including minimum wage hikes) that impacted city workers. Most likely the mayor selected these programs to try and pressure parliament to provide more funding. If so, it does not seem to be working. Parents have begun petitions calling on the mayor to cut funding for major concerts and events before child welfare funding. “Save on concerts, not on the safety and future of children!" has become a slogan and some minor protests have begun. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Finance has clarified that the city of Chisinau has a larger budget allocation in 2024 than in 2023 attempting to refute the mayor’s laying the blame on the government.

• The Supreme Court of Justice SCJ overturned an appeals court decision which recognized the removal of the Chance Party as illegal. This ruling effectively upheld actions taken by the government which used emergency powers to disqualify the Chance party and its candidates from local elections.

Economic News

Here’s a rapid fire roundup of the top economic and infrastructure stories of the week:

• Chisinau declares a State of Emergency regarding an outbreak of bird flu. The outbreak was first found in wild birds, particularly 65 dead swans found in lake Ghidighici. People are asked to limit the access of poultry to meadows and waterways. Meanwhile, Transnistria has temporarily banned the import of Moldovan live poultry and poultry products.

• The Ministry of Economy has proposed removing work visa requirements for citizens of 19 countries. The proposal is described as “temporary” and is designed to assist with labor shortages being felt across the whole economy. The countries in question are:

UK, USA, Norway, Switzerland, Japan, Ukraine, Turkey, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Albania, Canada, Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, South Korea, Iceland and Liechtenstein

• Moldova Railways is back in crisis. Railroad workers received their salaries for October right before the holidays as the rail system suffers a cashflow crisis and lack of liquidity. Leadership of the railroad explained that the re-opening of the port of Odesa caused a drop in demand compounded by a seasonal downturn. The railroad has little to no working capital and must cease certain payments when cashflow is reduced. Considering that the railroad has been operating at a breakneck pace due to the war and on-and-off blockade of Odesa, the fragility of the state owned company seems to indicate that serious structural problems remain.

• New customs code alarms Transnistria. The new customs code that came into force on January 1st requires all Moldovan registered companies operating in Transnistria to pay taxes on imports and exports. The removed a previous exception and was explained by government officials as a step towards creating a united and fair marketplace. Transnistrian “officials” said they were not consulted and are discussing within the diplomatic channels of the suspended 5+2 talks. This may come in the context of new agreements where Moldova and Ukraine are deepening cooperation on joint control of border crossings. Currently Moldova has no presence on the border between Transnistria and Ukraine, should this change then on of the main areas of de-facto independence of the region would be curtailed.

• Ilan Shor’s bizarre 10 lei gas scheme collapses. The license for NordGaz, the company that was supposed to import the 10 lei gas, has been revoked. Minister of Energy Parlicov explained the situation noting that only one 1 person applied to MoldovaGaz to change their gas supplier… the director of NordGaz himself. The director then continued to consume gas at his home, presumably paying his own company for it, but the company never imported any gas at all. The Minister summed this up saying:

"You can't just take gas from somewhere and say it's your gas. And here you sell it for 10 lei. Of course, if you stole it, you can sell it for 5 lei, or you can sell it for 1 lei. But that is not the essence of a free market."

Lots and lots of lions (and a panther?)

In this slow news week we’ll end with a comical and confusing story involving big cats. In last week’s Year in Review article we started off noting a story from January 2023 where a man in Stefan Voda was seen walking a lion in the woods near town. This was a funny and strange story, especially since there was never really any followup. January is a slow news month and I included it in the year in review just for some comic relief.

For those of you following me on facebook, you might know what happened next. In the process of trying to use Chat-GPT to generate some cover art for the article, the AI decided to go on a hallucinatory journey where it could not be talked out of centering the art on lions. The more I prompted it to focus on other things, or to “NOT INCLUDE ANY LIONS WHATSOEVER” the more lions it added. I eventually gave up on the whole project. If you want, you can see all the graphic results at this link, but here is one particularly crazy one to give you an idea:

Ok, so why does this matter? Well, part of the charm of that story was how it could just go unresolved. We never heard about that lion again… until now. On January 2nd Agora reported that a video of a man walking TWO LIONS had appeared online and that just like last year the good people of Stefan Voda called the police. The video shows a full grown lion seemingly attacking a man as the owner tells everyone to kinda calm down cause it’s fine.

After an investigation, news outlet ProTV brought us more details on the lions and their owner Vasile Mereuta. It seems that the lion reported on last January has now grown up and is named Baghira. She is accompanied by a new lion cub named Oscar and the man told journalists he also has a panther named Selina.

Mr. Mereuta claims that the animals came from an animal sanctuary in Kyiv (last year he claimed the Odesa Zoo) and that Baghira was a gift after he helped evacuate animals from Mariupol at the start of the war. He admits that Baghira was brought into the country illegally citing a “misunderstanding” with the authorities, but was able to prove to journalists that Oscar and Selina were properly imported and he had documents both for the animals and certifying his enclosure facility. He explained the situation saying (of his partners in Kyiv):

“They saw that our enclosure was ready. We have an association for the protection of animals from conflict zones, we have a charter, the association is registered with the APS according to the law.

The association that gave me this lion, Baghira, gave her to me for maintenance because they cannot support her. Two days ago they sent me a photo that now in Kyiv where they are a house exploded near them and that lady is asking me to keep more tigers.”

More tigers?

Police and customs agents conducted an investigation into this whole situation and fined Mr. Mereuta 30,000 lei for the illegal transport of Baghira - a fine he is contesting in court. At the same time, no other home can be found for the lion and so temporarily at least all the animals will stay with him in Stefan Voda.

So, was the AI hallucinating? Or was it prescient and somehow knew that not 2 days later the number of big cats would begin multiplying with no warning at all? This we cannot know, but it seems we are destined to keep writing about lions in the slow news month of January.