Another Billion Stolen from Moldova?

Victor ENI

The fifth meeting of the Moldova Partnership Platform allocated almost 400 million euros in loans and grants to our country. This does not inspire much optimism, as it is not clear how the billions of donor funds collected at the previous meetings were spent

The day before, two major events in terms of information and political scope started. The first is the regular meeting of the German-French-Romanian initiative called Moldova Partnership Platform and the second is the forum “Moldova Business Week-2024”. In theory, both events should attract additional money for the development of our country. In fact, of course, there are no bright prospects: it is only a question of keeping the socio-economic situation afloat. The trade balance indicators for the first half of the year are, to put it mildly, discouraging and do not give the slightest reason for optimism to both domestic and foreign investors. Suffice it to say that in January-June exports fell by 12.8% at once, with the decline taking place in all groups of countries - the CIS, the EU and other directions. I do not want to be ironic about the occupancy rate of the halls of the business forum, but something suggests that at the current stage, investment interest in us is not too high, given the regional events and the political situation in the republic. It is unlikely that owners of large capitals are ready to invest in a state that is in the neighborhood of warring Ukraine and is not a member of NATO. In addition, there is no certainty that the pro-Western PAS regime, as well as Maia Sandu herself, will be able to retain power and, consequently, to preserve Moldova’s current foreign policy course. Those who have been investing in our country for a long time also understand this. We will not list the names, but this year alone several well-known companies have shut down their production sites. Minimizing risks, business projects will continue to close, moving to Romania or other territories with relatively cheap labor and proximity to large markets. In general, the case is more or less clear with the business event - everything was done for the sake of a picture in a difficult election period. The “Partnership Platform” was a bit more interesting, as the authorities clearly placed their main bets on it both in terms of PR and money. The picture really turned out to be distinctive: several dozens of delegations came to Chisinau, as well as representatives of the diplomatic corps and international organizations. It is funny that unlike in 2023, this time neither the Prime Minister nor anyone else from the leadership of the country talked about the real situation in the economy or depressing statistics figures to show the difficult state of affairs. Firstly, it is unlikely that it will touch anyone very much, as everyone has already come from their capitals with ready-made “gifts”. Secondly, it would be very naive to expect PAS officials to openly admit that Moldova is economically ruined a month before the presidential elections. Therefore, putting on their festive faces, everyone went to the Palace of the Republic to add up the figures. The results, by the way, are not that impressive. A total of nine financing agreements were signed during the event. The total amount is more than 380 million euros, which, as usual, are divided into two categories: soft loans and grants. And only 80 million euros will come in “irrevocable form”, while 305.1 million euros will be received as loans. The money is allegedly planned to be used for infrastructure modernization, green energy development, waste management and recycling, railway modernization and reforestation. The amount named is, frankly speaking, slim pickings. One should not have expected otherwise. A year ago, the government gave the partners an impressive list of priority needs: reconstruction of infrastructure, construction of roads, ports, airports, water supply and sewerage systems. The total cost approached 15 billion euros, but no one in the West was in a hurry to give such money. As a result, everyone somehow modestly chipped in, and the amount of donations turned out to be much smaller than even at the previous congresses. Let me remind you that at the first meeting of the platform in Berlin, we were promised over 600 million euros in direct budgetary support, not mentioning loans. During the second meeting in Bucharest, we attracted roughly similar amounts. But in Paris, for instance, the most striking gesture was the allocation of a hundred-million-euro tranche for the purchase of gas and electricity from the French President. Finally, last year, the fourth platform gave us 38.7 million euros in grants and 110 million euros in soft loans. The downward trend in support is more than obvious. Some increase in support in 2024 can be explained only by the fact that twice as many delegations were invited to Chisinau this time, and, of course, by the pre-election factors. But everything, one way or another, has a limit, and next year it will hardly be possible to triple the number of participants in this fascinating event. And if before the autumn of 2025 there will be major shifts in the power in Moldova, it will most likely be impossible to hold another gathering of donors at all. But several European capitals will probably heave a sigh of relief. By launching the Moldova peer support format in 2022, the organizers aimed to mobilize, concentrate and coordinate political, technical and financial assistance from developed Western countries at a time when our republic is in a difficult situation due to the Russian-Ukrainian war. Two years later, there are no signs that this mechanism has become something reliable and evolving. On the contrary, everything is acquiring almost the same features as aid to Ukraine. Financial flows are dwindling, and the meagre amounts barely allow to patch gaping budget holes and sometimes fail to cover even priority social expenditures. And the major point - where and how were these rather significant by Moldovan standards funds collected at the four previous donor meetings spent? Judging even by the official statistics, Moldova has not made any breakthrough over the last two and a half years - on the contrary, the general regression and all the accompanying negative trends in the economy and demography continue. Or is the regime’s management of the country so bad that even such deplorable results were achieved only with large-scale foreign funding? We will probably only know the answers to these questions years from now. And I do not rule out that in the end it will turn out that one billion, or even two billion, has been stolen from us again. In fact, all these pompous gatherings are, of course, aimed only to one person, Maia Sandu, and mainly to demonstrate “unconditioned” foreign aid and political support to the current ruling regime. At the same time, judging by the published statement of France, Germany and Poland in the Weimar Triangle format, further assistance within the platform may be more targeted, with an advantage on the defense sector. In short, they will provide us assistance not in money, but in iron. And this must have already caused great sadness in some Chisinau offices, where they expected to roll up their sleeves and start actively developing multi-billion budgets.