Alweer iets in het Engels, zult u zeggen. Jawel, en dat nog wel van veteraan ter linkerzijde Bas (Sebastian) Moreel. In deze dagen waarin in het westelijke buurland, voormalige “Sowjetrepubliek”, van Oekraïne, ook al gestookt wordt voor annexatie door Rusland, is het van belang het op te nemen voor het zelfstandig voortbestaan van Moldova. -red.
In an interview with The Washington Post Moldovan president Maia Sandu said that she earns below the equivalent of one thousand euros per month and lives in her own flat instead of in the presidential palace, so as save money for the poor country. (I, as every single Dutch pension age citizen, get every month €1262.52 nett as basic Dutch State pension. SM.)
I guess that before Mrs Sandu lived of her remuneration of member of parliament and perhaps of a pension of former prime minister.
Her low income was not a sacrifice for her, she considered that part of the efforts necessary to achieve her aims.
The low income was more of an sacrifice for some ministers who in their previous work may have earned ten times more than they get now.
Her predecessor Igor Dodon of the Socialist Party had seen his job in a different light.
He is since some time in jail or under house arrest for suspected illegal enrichment (He was arrested in his splendid villa.) and high treason.
It is not clear to me why his trial has not started yet although the investigations have been completed.
I am always suspicious about the judges of former USSR countries. In the Soviet times Moldova was a Soviet Socialist Republic.
As in Slovakia (In the communist years part of Czechoslovakia) several judges and public prosecutors have been suspended but their trials take time.
As president and prime minister Igor Dodon had been supported by Putin, and Russian gaz supplier Gazprom charged Moldova a special price.
From when Maia Sandu changed the course of the country this is no longer the case.
Not only charges Gazprom a higher price, it demands also payment in advance, time and again a big problem.
For the inhabitants of Moldova this means higher prices and discontent.
Whereas Maia Sandu’s PAS party won the parliamentary elections of July 2021 with almost 53% of the votes, in a poll a few months ago it got only one third of the votes. (In a new poll held recently it got 38% with the competing Socialist Party 30% and its comrades of the Communist Party 6%, a dangerous combination.) But these polls were not preceded by a campaign and among actual inhabitants of Moldova only. Rumours said at the time that the PAS won the 2021 elections thanks to Moldovans living abroad. During stays abroad president Sandu and prime minister Natalia Gavrilitsa meet often with Moldovans living in the countries they visit.
Against all odds Maia Sandu and the PAS government continue carrying on their four years’ mandate and stick to independence.
Moldova is a member of the Association of Independent States, an association of former republics of the Soviet Union comprising, apart from Russia, Belarus and Moldova, a number of Asian countries, among them Kazakhstan.
But Maia Sandu has never attended any meeting and has also avoided meeting with Putin in spite of the insistence of Igor Dodon and his supporters, and the enticement of good relations with Gazprom.
Maia Sandu and Natalia Gavrilitsa work hard for good relations with the EU and its member states and with the U.S.
This has resulted in big grants and credits and in good perspectives of membership of the EU.
In the relations with Russia Moldova shows self-assurance.
After the Russian massive attacks on Ukraine in revenge for the attack on the Ketch brige the Ukrainian ministery of foreign affairs called the Russian ambassador because three Russian rockets launched from the Black Sea had violated Moldova’s aerospce.
And a few days ago Maia Sandu rejected a complaint by Russian spokes woman Maria Zaharova saying that the Russian invasion of Ukraine had dramatically affected Moldova’s relations with Russia.
I almost forget Moldova’s calmth when Russia expressed worries about discrimination of Russian speaking inhabitants of Moldova.
And the problems with separate Russian speaking Transnistria, the autonomous republic Gagauzia run by a pro-Russian government and the unruly area around the city of Baltsi.
The latest event I saw reported was of a Russian citizen throwing firework at the building of the Russian embassy shouting in Romanian, the main language in Moldova: „Putin ucigaș” – Putin Murderer.
He was arrested by Moldovan police but later released and thanked the Moldovan police for the way they had treated him.
Maria Zaharowa as spokeswoman for the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs lodged a complaint with the government of Moldova for late intervention of the police.
– Uitgelichte afbeelding: Door European People’s Party – IMG_7386, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=71171220
