59 THE UNFINISHED STATE 25 YEARS OF INDEPENDENT MOLDOVA Kamil Całus NUMBER 59 WARSAW DECEmbER 2016 THE UNFINISHED STATE 25 YEARS OF INDEPENDENT MOLDOVA Kamil Całus © Copyright by Ośrodek Studiów Wschodnich im. Marka Karpia / Centre for Eastern Studies CONTENT EDITOR Adam Eberhardt, Wojciech Konończuk EDITOR Halina Kowalczyk CO-OPERATION Anna Łabuszewska, Katarzyna Kazimierska TRANSLATION OSW CO-OPERATION Timothy Harrell GRAPHIC DESIGN PARA-buch PhOTOGRAPH ON COVER Shutterstock.com DTP GroupMedia CHARTS Wojciech Mańkowski PubLISHER Ośrodek Studiów Wschodnich im. Marka Karpia Centre for Eastern Studies ul. Koszykowa 6a, Warsaw, Poland Phone + 48 /22/ 525 80 00 Fax: + 48 /22/ 525 80 40 osw.waw.pl ISBN 978-83-62936-90-8 Contents EXECUTIVE SUMMARY /5 INtrODuctiON /10 I. WHO ARE THE MOLDOVANS? TWENTY-FIVE YEARS IN SEARCH OF AN IDENTITY /13 1. The historical background to the problem of identity /13 2. Two (and a half?) identities /16 3. Consequences of the identity problem /19 II. THE STATE OF STRUCTURAL CRISIS /22 1. The evolution of the the political system over 25 years: between a façade of democracy and soft authoritarianism /22 2. Moldova’s political scene: disputes over identity and geopolitics /29 3. Parties in the service of their sponsors /32 4. The legal system and the administration of justice: politicised and riddled by contradictions /34 5. The media: edging closer to a monopoly /39 III. THE ECONOMY: FROM COLLAPSE TO FRAGILE STABILITY /42 1. Struggling for stability /42 2. Structural weaknesses of the Moldovan economy /45 3. Permanent energy dependence on Russia /51 IV. MOLDOVAN SOCIETY /54 1. The demographic crisis and mass emigration /55 2. Brain drain /58 3. Human trafficking/61 4. Endemic corruption /62 5. Prospects /63 12/2016 V. FOREIGN POLICY /65 1. Two decades of geopolitical drift /65 2. The pro-European course: frustrated hopes /66 3. Prospects /70 OSW STUDIES 3 VI. THE CONFLICT IN TRANSNISTRIA: NO PROGRESS AND NO PROSPECTS /73 1. Contradictory interests and growing profits/73 2. Consequences of the Transnistrian problem for the Moldovan state /78 3. The problem of Transnistria: dim prospects /81 VII. WHAT WILL THE NEXT 25 YEARS BRING (IF ANYTHING)? /83 12/2016 OSW STUDIES 4 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY • After twenty-five years of independence, the Republic of Moldova is show- ing signs typical of so-called failing states. It has no control over parts of its territory and large sections of its border, no effective or responsible political class, no functioning political and legal system, no coherent and generally accepted concept of statehood, and no stable economy. These are persistent problems as a result of which Moldova has not been able to effec- tively perform many of the basic tasks of a state (especially in the social and institutional dimension). Even more importantly, the country has been and remains in a state of permanent and often visionless transition. • Moldova’s intellectual elites and the political factions which have been in power to date have not been able to put forward a coherent national vision capable of uniting its society, and neither have they been able to reach a consensus on the model and direction of Moldova’s development. This failure to develop an identity model that could be attractive to all Moldo- vans has hindered the development of a cohesive society in Moldova, as its population remains divided along ethnic and linguistic lines, and, even more importantly, divisions also persist within the titular majority (be- cause of the absence of a cohesive Moldovan identity). This absence of an attractive and inclusive model of identity has rendered it difficult (if not impossible) to resolve the problem of Transnistrian separatism and ease the tensions between Chisinau and Gagauzia. As long as those two prob- lems remain unsolved, it appears that it will not be possible in the long term for Moldova to function normally, create an effective and respon- sible political class and administration, consolidate society, develop civil society structures and instil a sense of responsibility for the character of the state in its citizens. • Moldova’s current political system is a classic example of a post-Soviet oligarchic model in which the wealthiest and most powerful persons in the state do not so much try to interfere with the state’s policy by us- ing their economic influence as seek to take power directly in order to safeguard their interests. If for any reason they are unwilling or unable to hold the highest state positions themselves, they will appoint com- pletely dependent persons with no political backing – the recent nomi- nation of Pavel Filip (a close aide of Moldova’s most important politician, the oligarch Vlad Plahotniuc) as the prime minister in January 2016 is a case in point. In its current shape, Moldova is also a classic example of a captured state, in which the operation of key state institutions (in- cluding the administration, the judiciary and the security services) has been fully subordinated to the interests of a narrow political and busi- ness elite led by Plahotniuc. • Moldova’s party system is dominated by strong-leader parties which do not represent the interests of wider sections of society but merely serve as in- struments in the pursuit of the political and business objectives of their leaders and sponsors. The Democratic Party is an example of such a politi- cal formation – in late 2009 and early 2010 it was taken over by Vlad Pla- hotniuc and began to represent the oligarch’s interests on Moldova’s politi- cal scene. Moldova’s main left-wing parties (Igor Dodon’s Party of Socialists and Renato Usatii’s Our Party, and previously also the Party of Commu- nists) are dependent on Moscow, which supports them financially, politi- cally and media-wise, and views them as instruments serving the objec- tives of its own policy towards Moldova. • It is hard to find a party with a classically left-wing or right-wing profile in Moldova’s party system. The divisions of the country’s political scene do not reflect differences of ideology or economic views, but rather different attitudes towards geopolitical and historical issues. As new political forma- tions emerge, they do not try to compete by offering attractive economic or social programmes, but instead strive to present themselves as credibly as possible as exponents of specifically understood “left-wing” or “right- wing” political ideology. Such divisions are very convenient from the point of view of the political elites because they make it easy to capture particu- lar sections of the electorate. At the same time, Moldova lacks bottom-up parties based on broad, self-governing structures. It was only recently that attempts were made in Moldova at building such parties, and those efforts have not produced any tangible results yet. • The political system that has formed in Moldova over the last 25 years of independence is highly unstable. The periods of stabilization which Mol- dova witnessed in recent years (especially while the Communists were in 12/2016 power) were not an outcome of the system’s effective functioning. On the contrary, they stemmed from a heavy concentration of power in a single political camp, which was therefore in a position to bypass or ignore the problems generated by the system. Under conditions of political pluralism, on the other hand, Moldova’s political and constitutional system has almost OSW STUDIES always generated political crises because of its immaturity. 6 • The weakness of the legal system is a fundamental structural problem that the Moldovan state faces. Adopted in 1994 and modified on several occasions, the constitution of Moldova is imprecise and open to broad in- terpretations. New laws adopted by the Moldovan parliament are often incompatible with the constitution, and amendments made to the con- stitution are frequently not followed by corresponding modifications to lower-level legislation. As a result, Moldova’s legal system is inconsistent and internally contradictory, and therefore conducive to constitutional and political crises. Because of the legal system’s imprecision, the Con- stitutional Court has acquired a special role in Moldova – it is regularly called on to issue (often far-reaching) interpretations of the constitution. Under the circumstances of a general capture of the state apparatus by political and business groups, the Constitutional Court lacks independ- ence and regularly gets used to effectively enact new legal regulations that do not pass through parliament. • Moldova is one of the most corrupt countries in the region. Corruption is widespread, from the top tiers of government administration down to the healthcare system or education system. Meanwhile, the institutions legally appointed to fight corruption tend to be used in political games, to combat political rivals, etc. The Moldovan leadership is aware that if it genuinely curbed corruption, it would lose some of its influence on the state apparatus (including the administration of justice), thereby exposing itself to consid- erable danger. Consequently, the measures which the successive govern- ments had pledged to take in order to crack down on corruption have not produced any tangible results. • Moldova’s economy has been in permanent crisis since the early 1990s. Over the last quarter of a century, successive governments have not been able to create the foundations for stable economic development. As a re- sult, Moldova remains Europe’s poorest country, with an economy based on relatively unprocessed agricultural products (with as much as 30% of the country’s population working in agriculture), completely dependent on external energy supplies (mainly from Russia), and largely export-based (with exports susceptible to political shocks). Its financial sector remains 12/2016 unstable and opaque, of which the recent banking affair is a good illustra- tion: in late 2014 around one billion US$ was siphoned off from the Moldo- van banking sector.