Time to Pay the Bills. Why the Transfer of Chisinau Airport to Rothschild Is an Unpleasant Surprise for the Moldovan Authorities

RTA expert Sergey Cheban notes that Ilan Sor not only fled the country, but also to spite the new government earned on the sale of his property to a respected world-known banker Airport passion Chisinau airport can be considered one of the few well-deserved reasons for national pride. Passengers love the airport of the Moldovan capital for its convenience, small size, security and good service. After air traffic stopped between Ukraine and Russia, Chisinau at all acquired all-European importance: it receives flights from different countries and continents, and Air Moldova flies to the Russian capital, serving a significant flow of labor migrants. Chisinau airport is also big money. Because of this, since 2013, this airport is in the center of a slowly smoldering scandal. Many experts and politicians believe that the airport in 2013 was illegally concessioned to a private company on extremely unfavorable conditions for the country. The beneficiary of the transaction and the owner of the concession company was Ilan Sor: the ex-mayor of Orhei, the ‘black banker’, the oligarch, the main suspect in the theft of a billion, Plahotniuc’s ally and just a far-seeing man who successfully escaped from Moldova from criminal prosecution. In early August, the Chairman of the Party of Socialists faction in the Parliament of Moldova Vlad Batrîncea, who also became a member of the ad hoc commission to investigate illegal privatization, promised to return the airport to state ownership. “We found a large number of violations, and we will suggest the government to terminate the concession agreement,” Batrincea said in an interview with Sputnik. However, it turned out that the airport no longer belongs to scandalous Sor. On August 19, the new owner of the concession company Nathaniel Philip Victor James Rothschild arrived in Chisinau. Surprise magic The news about the new owner of the Chisinau airport was another dramatic turn in the difficult life of the Republic of Moldova. Everyone spoke for the return of the airport to state ownership when it was concessioned to the oligarch and criminal Ilan Sor. And now it’s been bought by a successful banker and a representative of the world famous powerful dynasty of the Rothschilds. Whether the Moldovan authorities continue to criticize the illegal surrender of the airport in 2013 and demand its return to the state, that is now to offer respected Nathaniel Rothschild to come to terms with buying a ‘pig in a poke’ and politely refuse a lucrative asset? The answer seems not so simple, and it’s not about the big name of the new owner. Although, of course, it also matters. First: Mr. Rothschild bought the concession that has worked for 6 years. This is a lengthy period, which can be considered a kind of ‘limitations period’ – otherwise anything can be returned to the state property under the guise of allegedly illegal decisions of the past malicious authorities. Second: A very serious foreign investor arrived in Moldova, who has nothing to do with the internal political strife in the country. Of course, one can go straight ahead at deoligarchization, but to exercise common sense would not be harmful. Third. Friendship with transnational business, and quite respectable and official, especially contrasted with the criminal syndicate of Plahotniuc, can be beneficial to the image of the new government and the whole country. However, the current situation also has disadvantages. Unpleasant conclusions Events around the airport, of course, will take a toll on the public image of the Moldovan authorities and its individual representatives. The words of the socialist Batrîncea about the return of the airport to the state, as they say, have not cooled down. The airport case shows that the Sandu-Dodon government is able and willing sometimes to ‘close their eyes’ in their principled struggle for the deoligarchization of the country. Especially when it comes to respected people and big names. The pill seems quite bitter when you remember that Mr. Rothschild bought the airport from the structures of Ilan Sor: that is, the disgraced oligarch not only flew out of the country in time, but also earned money by selling some property. This outcome bears little resemblance to a successful deoligarchization of the country and damages the karma of the new government of Moldova. We can’t exclude that the people will spread rumors about the new ‘capture’ of Moldova by Western business to pay off the assistance provided by the EU and the US in the expulsion of Plahotniuc from Moldova. Although Western structures have been working with Chisinau for a long time and continue to lend to the Moldovan economy, horror stories about the ‘humanitarian intervention’ of transnational companies are terribly popular. Therefore, someone will surely have this idea that in exchange for the generous tranches of macro-financial assistance promised by the European Union and the IMF, the partners have set conditions for Chisinau to let big Western business into the country, and in order not to beat around the bush, they began immediately from the airport. Unfortunately, this guess does not seem so unrealistic: Chisinau, which has failed reforms many times and frankly ignored European requirements, has nothing to offer for the next multimillion-dollar loans. But only to give some profitable assets as security.