Interview for the FES/APE Foreign Policy Bulletin

What do you consider to be the main structural weakness of Moldova’s current local public administration system, and why is the reform model you advocate better suited than the available alternatives to address this challenge, especially in light of the country’s European integration ambitions and the need to align with European standards of local governance?

I believe the main problem is precisely that no one wants to name it. As the saying goes, “In the house of a hanged man, one does not speak of the rope.”

What problem are we actually trying to solve? What are we hoping to achieve by abandoning the current system and introducing a new model of local administration? There are hardly any coherent answers to these questions. Instead, we hear emotional reactions and passing impressions: “Moldova is too fragmented!”, “Unlike our neighbours, we have not carried out administrative reforms for a long time!”, “So many municipalities—it is unacceptable!”

What we do see, however, is an obvious reality: our villages and towns are being depopulated. People are leaving, and their numbers continue to decline. This is the challenge to which we must respond. The question is: how?

The Government’s answer appears simple: make everything small bigger. Merge three districts into one and consolidate small municipalities into larger entities. As a result, we will have only 10 districts and around 300 municipalities. Presumably, all problems will then be solved— at least until those structures also begin to lose population or until a new round of large scale amalgamation becomes necessary. This exercise resembles a social game of ‘Tetris’ or an administrative Lego set more than a genuine reform.

Let us be honest: amalgamating rural municipalities merely to facilitate access to European grants is not a development objective; it is an approach dependent on external resources. Moreover, the forced merger of municipalities essentially means the disappearance of hundreds of local spaces of democracy—a blow to civic activism and the quality of community life. Saving money at the expense of democracy may be a trend of our times, but it is a trend that should be resisted rather than applauded.

The real problem, therefore, is the degradation of the regions—a complex process with economic, social, and human dimensions. Its consequence is the mass exodus of the population. This also defines the primary objective: the creation of a sustainable and innovative system of development incentives, including in the sphere of local public administration. What we need is not optimization but modernization. Not adjustments to a burial garment, but a suit tailored for the future. Not a new rigid vertical of power, but genuine local self-government.

The modernization model proposed by the Civic Congress is based precisely on incentives and freedoms—organizational, fiscal, and democratic.

Its central element is the “40 Cities” project, which follows the logic of the great historical reforms that survived for centuries after their creators had disappeared. Magdeburg Law, Lübeck Law, the laws of Paris, London, or Nuremberg were not merely models of self government; they were expressions of urban freedoms that created the recognizable image of the European city: the town hall, the clock tower, and the central square.

The essence of our approach is simple. District centres—the towns and cities—must become engines of development, centres for planning and implementing projects aimed at improving communal services and quality of life. The districts should be transformed into municipalities. Fiscal autonomy—that is, the expansion of local freedoms and opportunities—must become a reality. This is how the conditions can be created for increasing employment in urban areas and for transforming rural localities into modern and attractive places to live.

All rural municipalities should be able to associate and reorganize exclusively on a voluntary basis, while preserving their essential role as institutions that foster community responsibility, self-government, and citizens’ capacity for self-organization.

Money and the Use of Resources

Local public administration reform inevitably involves a difficult balance between administrative efficiency and local democratic representation. Where do you believe this balance should be struck?

In reality, this balance does not exist. Administrative efficiency is, first and foremost, a matter of money and the use of resources. Local representation, on the other hand, is about values, fairness, and citizens’ participation in the decision-making process. Attempting to transform the rural municipality into a kind of Soviet-era “millionaire collective farm” under the banner of the European Union is nothing more than a new utopia. Villages have long ceased to be self-sufficient communities. The last time they functioned as such was during the Neolithic period. The urban revolution and the division of labour changed that reality forever.

The prosperity of rural communities does not depend on the number of local councillors, but rather on the financial, organizational, and development capacities of the nearest urban centre. In our model, this role belongs to the municipal centre. It is the municipal centre that, in partnership with rural municipalities, should set quality-of-life standards and become the hub for planning and coordinating infrastructure projects: sewage networks, water supply systems, electricity networks, and other services that simultaneously serve several rural localities.

What conditions are necessary for voluntary amalgamation to function effectively in the Republic of Moldova? Are financial incentives alone sufficient, or does there come a point when more assertive state intervention becomes necessary?

From my point of view, the term “amalgamation” is so meaningful in itself that it can only imply a voluntary process. As for this idea, I have already expressed my position: I consider it both unnecessary and undemocratic. It is an attempt to reduce administrative and operating costs at the expense of local democracy. In other words, it seeks to achieve relatively minor savings while sacrificing essential mechanisms of local representation and citizen participation in decision-making at the community level.

Radical Fiscal Decentralization

How realistic is genuine financial autonomy for local authorities under the current conditions in the Republic of Moldova, and what specific changes do you consider to be priorities in the fiscal system and the redistribution of resources?

The Civic Congress advocates for radical fiscal decentralization. The central element of the fiscal reform we propose is the introduction of the principle of reverse profit taxation: the further a locality is from Chisinau in terms of its level of development and quality of life, the lower its tax burden should be.

We propose the establishment of a clear and rigid two-tier system for the allocation of tax revenues, under which both rural municipalities and municipal centres would retain the full proceeds from personal income tax and corporate income tax. In this way, 100% of these revenues would remain at the disposal of local public authorities, providing them with the resources necessary for development and for improving public services.

Almost all participants in the debate organized by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation in partnership with the School of Public Administration of Moldova State University spoke about the need for broad political consensus to ensure that the reform becomes irreversible. What compromises do you consider possible, and where do you see the red lines of your reform concept?

Indeed, consensus is necessary for a reform to become irreversible. It is, first and foremost, a matter of pragmatism. In the absence of broad consensus, any reform risks failing to survive the next democratic change of government.

However, the current authorities do not appear to be particularly concerned with either building consensus or pursuing genuine reform. Instead, they seem to be playing their own political game, without taking long-term consequences into account.

The number of dissatisfied stakeholders can only grow. And the scale of this phenomenon is not difficult to estimate. We are talking about nearly 600 rural municipalities that could be affected simply because they have fewer than 3,000 inhabitants. We are also talking about at least 20 towns that would lose their status as district centres. In all of these localities, political forces will inevitably emerge promising the same thing: a return to the previous situation.

Naturally, the Civic Congress will also criticize the current government’s approach, but from the perspective of its own reform model. Unlike the solutions being proposed today, our model requires a much higher level of political and societal consensus, as it would also involve amendments to the Constitution.

Relics of the Past

At the roundtable held on 26 May, many participants argued that the current district (raion) level has become outdated and no longer responds effectively to Moldova’s administrative needs. How do you see the future of districts within the country’s administrative-territorial architecture? What role, if any, should they play in a reformed model of local governance?

The district level is, in essence, a relic of past economic and administrative relations based on the traditional centre–periphery model. It corresponded to a reality characterized by an industrial capital, several major industrial hubs—Bălți, Tiraspol, Bender, Cahul, Soroca, and Orhei—and vast rural areas with an agricultural profile. Within such an agro-industrial model of territorial development, the district level represented a natural link. The village was not merely a place of residence but also a distinct economic unit—a collective farm or a state farm.

Today, the district level is a vestige of the past. This is why we envision the administrative architecture of the Republic of Moldova as being built around 40 self-sufficient municipalities, surrounded by networks of democratically self-governing rural communities. Such a reform would be efficient, modern, and supported by citizens.

Thank you!