Bureaucratization of Moldova Under the European Vector

Anton ŠVEC

Expenditures on maintaining the state apparatus in Moldova continue to rise rapidly, driven not only by PAS’ desire to create more well-paid positions for its members and their affiliates but also by the need to fulfill obligations to the European Union 

The European Commission is working on a new financial plan that stipulates a 40% increase in bureaucratic expenditures, including the hiring of an additional 2,500 administrative staff. A number of member-state governments, Austria, Germany, as well as the Nordic and Benelux countries, expressed their discontent with such spending in a letter to EU Budget Commissioner Piotr Serafin, particularly against the backdrop of ongoing calls for reduced consumption and stricter fiscal discipline at the national level. The European Commission, which already employs more than 33,000 officials, predictably rejected the criticism, arguing that Brussels is taking on an increasing number of responsibilities and areas of oversight. The policy of bureaucratization is being extrapolated to Moldova, where a similar scenario is unfolding on a smaller scale: the reduction, consolidation, and elimination of local representative self-government bodies, alongside an expansion in the number and staffing of centrally funded institutions. Chisinau, in much the same way, is ignoring protests from the opposition and regional authorities, both regarding the politically driven territorial reform and the excessive spending on the public sector. De facto, this amounts to further centralization, with a final redistribution of financial resources away from the districts in favor of a state apparatus composed of PAS party activists and various relatives of the regime’s top figures. A side effect of these changes is the deepening of demographic decline and the depopulation of small villages and communes, effectively turning Chisinau into an administrative “showcase” of a small Eastern European country lacking industrial, educational, and human capital Reports on the expansion of staffing in central government bodies have been emerging throughout April. The Ministry of Labor and Social Protection plans to hire a new state secretary and 16 specialists, which will cost around 3.5 million lei by the end of the year. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and its embassies abroad require more than fifty additional diplomats, costing the state nearly 40 million lei, while the central apparatus of the ministry will undergo reorganization with the creation of new departments and units. The staff of the State Chancellery will be increased by 56 positions at a cost exceeding 21 million lei. The Ministry of Environment will receive 22 new employees with salaries totaling 8.8 million lei. Maia Sandu herself is not standing aside from these processes, expanding the staff of her advisers. On Tuesday, a new appointee was introduced – Ion Mocanu, adviser on relations with religious denominations. Presumably, his portfolio will include overseeing the course toward the “Romanianization” of Orthodoxy in Moldova through the further expansion of the Bessarabian Metropolis. At present, Moldova has 14 ministries in operation, which generally corresponds to regional standards. However, the country has more than thirty agencies, the vast majority of which were created in the context of, or after, the signing of the Association Agreement with the European Union. In addition to long-established bodies such as the National Archives Agency, the National Agency for Regulation of Nuclear and Radiological Activities, the “Moldsilva” Agency, the National Road Transport Agency, and the well-known Public Services Agency, dozens of other services are in operation. All of them were established under direct guidance from Brussels and have effectively become “comfortable positions” for a large pro-government bureaucratic class. These include agencies for interethnic relations, public procurement, investment, intervention and payments in agriculture, public property, food safety, and many others. A significant number of these bodies duplicate the functions of ministries. For example, the Medicines Agency and the National Agency for Public Health overlap with the Ministry of Health; the Environmental Agency mirrors the Ministry of Environment; the National Employment Agency corresponds to the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection; the National Agencies for Research and Development, as well as for Curriculum and Assessment, duplicate functions of the Ministry of Education; and the Agency for the Administration of Courts overlaps with the Ministry of Justice, among others. The prerogatives of certain agencies also partially overlap with one another: for instance, the National Energy Regulatory Agency and the Energy Efficiency Agency, or the e-Government Agency and the National Agency for Electronic Communications and Information Technology Regulation. All these numerous and duplicative bodies have emerged over the past 10-15 years and are financed directly from the state budget, as well as through paid (and often expensive) services provided to citizens. It is hard to believe, but since 2016 the country has even had a Regional Development Agency of the Autonomous Territorial Unit of Gagauzia. The effectiveness of most of the aforementioned bodies, as well as their staffing composition, has never been seriously analyzed by either the authorities or civil society, which tends to focus primarily on top officials rather than on the authoritarian nomenklatura associated with Maia Sandu. The resulting bureaucratic imbalance has largely been driven by the so-called “requirements” of European integration, dating back to the very beginning of negotiations on the Association Agreement. For Brussels, the functionality of any given sector is defined exclusively by the existence of a separate body endowed with specific competences and bearing responsibility. Thus, in the course of accession negotiations, Chisinau is required not only to fully adopt the European Union’s legislative framework, but also to demonstrate the existence of specific institutions (agencies, centers, bureaus, inspectorates, etc.) responsible for implementing individual regulations and directives. Moreover, these bodies must not only be established, but the state must also prove its ability to finance their operation from the budget, including the remuneration of staff with appropriate competencies. Within the ongoing accession talks and the accelerated transposition of the so-called “EU acquis”, the number of such often inefficient yet budget-intensive structures is set to steadily increase. It is reasonable to assume that Maia Sandu’s entourage and the PAS party would only welcome such a development, as it would allow them to accommodate all remaining relatives, friends, and others. After all, the specially created sinecure-style centers (such as the crisis management center headed by Serghei Diaconu and the National Centre for Information Protection and Countering Disinformation led by Ana Revenco) are clearly not sufficient for this purpose.