The leader of the Coalition for Unity and Welfare (CUB), Igor Munteanu, spoke for this bulletin about his vision on freedom of expression and the level of professionalism of the media today in the Republic of Moldova. We discussed the institutional communication, the political objectives of the Republic of Moldova and fair access to the mass media of all political forces. We invite you to read in the following lines about how the state of the press in the Republic of Moldova is seen from the perspective of a pro-European party leader from the extra-parliamentary opposition:

- Mr. Munteanu, how do you see the situation of mass media in the Republic of Moldova today? Is there a greater degree of professionalization of journalists?

- Regarding the qualification of journalists, I would not venture to give verdicts. But certainly, the general atmosphere regarding the press and electronic media is not extraordinary. This can be seen even in the latest Freedom House report. There is a lot of pressure on the media.

On the one hand, there is this polarization of the media according to political and geopolitical preferences. On the other hand, there is a polarization after accessing sources of funding for survival.

The first polarization formula involves the presence or association of journalists as persons with a certain degree of professional qualification on culturally assumed subjects. This means that, for example, certain groups of Russian-speaking journalists are certainly more incisive against Europeanization initiatives or the process of joining the European Union. And vice versa, the communities of journalists who speak Romanian and feel somewhat part of a wider Romanian space, to a greater extent, share the objective of taking the Republic of Moldova into a European cultural and political space.

The second form of polarization relates to a trivial and, at the same time, constant issue for our space in the Republic of Moldova - the press has no money. The media, in order to survive, must play by the rules of an extremely fragmented and fractured economic market. Because the economy is not working, this market for online advertising, or advertising that reaches the final press, is extremely small. From this point of view, the money that is taken for the perpetuation of some television stations is taken from the political space.

- Who is targeted by such practices?

- This applies both to popular television stations, such as, for example, Jurnal TV, TV8 and so on, and to groups that live on donations from the Russian Federation. Because funding goes all the way, so that certain states maintain the presence of soft power, that is, the power of persuasion, through the means at their disposal.

Under these conditions, talking about press freedom is somewhat cynical. Because, quite simply, journalists don’t really have a choice. Journalists cannot, for example, open some author shows as they would like, or as their vocation or conviction would dictate. Because it has to take into account exactly what the limited partners like.

Slight drop in the world press freedom rankings

- The Republic of Moldova ranked 31 out of 180 in the World Press Freedom Index for 2024, three positions lower than last year. What do you think are the causes of this slight decline?

- The causes are on the surface. It is about the ban for the 12 television stations that were suspended by a decision of the Commission for Exceptional Situations. There are two issues here.

First of all, I am surprised by the fact that the Republic of Moldova fell by only three steps. Given that you, as a national authority, the government because it is the responsibility of the Government - eliminate a quarter or even more of all the television stations that are rebroadcast or broadcast on your national territory, three steps is certainly not a small drop. It is a heavy blow to freedom of expression. Now, what kind of freedom of expression these television stations were broadcasting is another matter.

But, statistically speaking or politically speaking, it is a matter of shortening the life of some television stations that had some collectives of journalists behind them, had some economic calculations and had a certain audience. We are talking objectively.

The second issue, sure, has always aroused a lot of dissatisfaction and consternation, namely the fact that the suspension of the licenses of these televisions was handled by an ad hoc commission of “public inquisitor” status and not by the state agency that is by organic law mandated to regulate the audio-visual market.

These things, combined with the expansion of the use of the hybrid war terminology, create in the Republic of Moldova a third extremely serious polarization, from my point of view. Because you cannot achieve a condition of democratic and liberal participation up to a certain level of citizens in conditions where there is a constant fear of aligning yourself with one of two groups: the group fighting a hybrid war and the group conducting the war hybrid.

There is a constant state of suspicion and accusation in the public space about how any kind of message or any kind of campaign folds into a certain political model of conveying a certain geopolitical positioning. Moldova is not in a state of tranquillity and peace. It is indeed under unprecedented attack, and the vehemence with which the instruments of response are used cannot be considered instruments of peace.

Even the Patriot project [Center for Strategic Communication and Combating Disinformation -n.r] distorts the existing market.

Shutting down TV channels with Russian propaganda: censorship or sanitary act?

- What do you think about the mechanism by which the licenses of several television stations were suspended, as you rightly mentioned? It is about the Investment Agency. Do you see it as a normal move or did the Audiovisual Council have to deal with this matter?

- The use of this agency for the verification of strategic investments – I do not know its exact name – is a para-legal invention that has nothing in common with the standards of the rule of law. Because its use can justify any kind of intervention by an authority that is currently in power without ensuring any form of legal protection or the right to defend the entities that are subject to censorship.

Attacks on investigative journalists

- What do you think about the recent episode with Cornelia Cozonac, the director of the Center for Journalistic Investigations and the author of a journalistic investigation into the integrity of the chair of the Pre-Vetting Commission, Herman von Hebel? There was a lot of backlash against her for doing her job as an investigative journalist.

- From my point of view, Cornelia Cozonac was subjected to a totally immoral treatment, because it also involved the resources of a party in government and certain journalists who are politically employed for the political group in government in this moment.

Investigative journalism has always played an extremely important role, because the public wanted to get answers other than those offered through official channels. When Mrs. Cozonac identified certain gaps or obscurities in his resume, the realities that Herman von Hebel went through, she had the obligation to report and ask questions to the authorities that hired him and that omitted to communicate certain things during the recruitment process.

When you commit such lapses, you compromise the whole process. The fact that today, for example, a month later, we end up in another scandal, related to another member of the Pre-Vetting Commission, Tatiana Răducanu, who, at the same time, is also part of the Supreme Security Council and of the Independent Anti-corruption Advisory Committee under the Presidency, speaks about the fact that knowingly omitting elements that must raise alarms does not create space for public trust in the institutions that operate from the state budget. They begin to spin in circles, in a vicious circle of complicity, half-said things and distrust of the collective and beneficial purpose that such institutions as the Pre-Vetting Commission are supposed to have.

I have always had and still have great respect for investigative journalists who do not bow to power, who do not take their ration out of the hands of political power and do not spare any flaws or failures of the public integrity system. Because if this did not happen, we would have to pay tenfold.

We are a state fearful of historical experiences and traumas, but we continue to reproduce them because we often lack the courage for certain categories of people to professionally exercise their obligations. This refers both to the journalist and to the people in the rule of law bodies - prosecutors, judges - not to mention the public service, which at the moment is totally broken under the burden of the political preferences of a single party in Republic of Moldova.

The monopolization of the state in the interests of a political group is an action condemned by the constitutional provisions. Unfortunately, few people realize that this directly affects them and they will be held to account.

Faulty communication

- How do you think about the communication with the press of the current government and how transparent and communicated are certain decisions taken by the current government?

- From the first year in which it came to government, PAS paraded. I remember that the main blame that certain ministers or spokesmen of the ruling party took was that we communicated poorly. And help for communication was requested at every political meeting held in the halls of the European Parliament or the European Commission, or from the partner states.

But unfortunately, quantity did not equal quality. At the moment, there is an entire press army that is subject only to the desire of the current ruling party to communicate only about its achievements, without questioning that certain achievements could have been done faster, more efficiently, with less resources, and more focused on citizens’ priorities. The discrepancies between the citizens’ expectations and the economic, education or health policies for example, are staggeringly large.

At this point, I believe that the current government needs not so much more communication, but more honest communication, in order to maintain or build the conditions of trust that are vitally necessary for this state not to collapse.

Things are quite serious, because there is a big bubble of PAS with this army of loyal people and a population that is also boiling in Chisinau and other regions, and the alerts about this boiling process have been detected throughout the last elections, starting with the May 2023 governor elections in the Gagauz Autonomous Region. There is another problem - that people are easily manipulated or easily bought, but the discrepancy between their voting options or their expectations in relation to a national agenda and what is delivered is astonishingly large.

Political games in the public media

- As the leader of an extraparliamentary opposition party, how often are you invited on public television and radio? Do you think that the representatives of the opposition parties in the Republic of Moldova have sufficient access to the public media?

- You must be joking. In the last six months I think I’ve only been on a show once and that was for ten minutes. When it comes to top shows like Buna Seara or other shows that run between an hour and an hour and a half, I didn’t have the luxury of being invited to. Although I notice with a certain degree of envy the repetition or perpetuation of the same faces that undoubtedly belong to the party in government.

It is unfortunately a vicious practice for certain parties to monopolize their right to make lists of recommended or recommendable people and others who should not be displayed in public space.

This distorts the democratic processes and creates a great discrepancy between the realities conveyed to citizens and, fundamentally, the standards of a pluralistic, democratic state, from which should start all other trends, including accession and the process of European integration which is only an effect of democratic pluralism in the Republic of Moldova.

It is an effect of the rule of law and our right to express a European identity. When, for example, you do nothing but monopolize the public space, the instruments of power, believing that you are ultimately right, you can very easily find yourself thrown into the dustbin of history, because the citizens’ options are much more dynamic, they are much more demanding and expect a more humane approach from the government.

The press, the fourth power in the state?

- What are the prerogatives that the press in the Republic of Moldova should enjoy in order to become even informally that fourth power in the state, which would help the mechanism of checks and balances between the powers of the states?

- In order to comply with the ethical standards, the press from Moldova must ask all the people or those whom they report on or promote in public space, the truth that the citizens expect and more specifically, questions with enough sharpness for people in administrative, political or any other kind of positions to report, be accountable to the citizen for what they do and what they don’t do. However, we see that in relation to people from the extra-parliamentary opposition, the press launches hurricanes of accusations, leaving on the power’s bench people who should definitely answer for what they did or committed.

There are a lot of uncertainties and questions to be asked about the way in which public money is managed, in which the economy or the relevant sectors related to public life are managed. You wonder, in fact, what schools these journalists went through, who benefits from such a distortion of functions, of prerogatives, as you mentioned. What is the general use of a press that adulates people in certain positions of power when the population is going through unprecedented economic shocks?

Just look at the national statistics data to see how much of the population remains in the extreme poverty zone, then the massive population have left the country in recent years. The latter have not been limited to the number of people who usually leave the country, but actually increased.

Look also at the total lack of credibility of economic initiatives, because when in the neighbouring Ukraine 5,400 investment projects entered in the last two years, despite the war, not a single foreign company entered the Republic of Moldova in the last three years of the current government.

This speaks of the incompetence of some people who, with great arrogance, claim to be ministers, but only manage the interests of their own salary, or perhaps manage the interests of certain groups, who use the current government or certain ministries, so as not to generalize, in order to perpetuate poverty and lack of professionalism.

Thank you!