Ion Tăbârță, political expert, Institute for Development and Social Initiatives (IDIS) „Viitorul”
On 15 December, Josep Borrell, Vice-President of the European Commission took part in a European Parliament plenary debate on the recent developments in the Eastern Partnership countries.
In his remarks, Mr Borrell told he considers civil society and independent media in EaP countries as effective tools in increasing democratic resilience and tackling corruption.
“Strengthening resilience is the main objective and core element of the future Eastern Partnership policy. We will work with partners on five areas of resilience – economic, democratic, environmental, digital, and societal. I think it is key to empower civil society and independent media to increase accountability, to expose corruption and to enhance critical thinking,” he added.
StrategEast has interviewed the leading experts from Eastern Partnership countries to find out their take on independent media and civil society development in their countries. Here are the answers from the expert on Moldova.
How do you assess the degree of independent media and civil society development in your country?
Both, the media and civil society in the Republic of Moldova is of two types – independent and politically obedient, especially this refers to the press.
The media in the Republic of Moldova has gone through several stages of evolution, and throughout this period the biggest problem in the field has been the political interference in the functioning of the press. Until 2009, there were brutal forms of censorship and the monopoly imposed by the state and the ruling party. After 2009, with the arrival of pro-European governments at the helm of the Republic of Moldova, the Moldovan media no longer functioned on the model of censorship of the ruling party, as it was during the ruling Communist Party of Moldova and the party’s leader, Vladimir Voronin.
The pro-European Moldovan political leaders in charge of the Republic of Moldova, being in permanent dispute with each other, but also with the communist opposition in the parliament, began more and more to form a “party mass media”, which would be favorable to them in reporting their actions, but also to attack through the media the competitors and political opponents. The oligarchization of the Republic of Moldova, also called “the phenomenon of the captive state”, was manifested by the oligopolization and berlusconization of the Moldovan media. The rather small media market in the Republic of Moldova, controlled by the country’s former informal leader, Vladimir Plahotniuc, and the political “partisanship” of the media has produced a cartelization of Moldovan information sources.
The state institution responsible for the media, the Audiovisual Coordinating Council, with some small exceptions, did not show itself as a fair and independent arbitrator in judging information sources, often showing political obedience to the ruling party. The same can be said about the Competition Council, which must regulate the media advertising market in the Republic of Moldova. Under these conditions, the independent media found it very difficult to survive, there were times when her situation was dramatic. The free press in the Republic of Moldova, for years, has fought hard for survival, in harsh legislative and economic conditions.
Broadly speaking, only with the help of the EU and foreign donors, the independent media in the Republic of Moldova has managed to overcome the dominant phenomena in the Moldovan press: artificially limited sources of advertising funding, cartel agreements and politically imposed monopolies. Despite that the external sources of funding are helping the Moldovan media to survive, but they are also limited and can only partially and temporarily cover the needs of the newsrooms.
Civil society is a phenomenon that appeared in the Republic of Moldova after the collapse of the USSR, because in the Soviet period there was a unique party ideology, and everything that was an alternative to this ideology from the beginning was annihilated. Therefore, the civic initiative in the Republic of Moldova is slightly more developed compared to consolidated democracies. Broadly speaking, Moldovan civil society capable of opposing politics and contributing to legislative reforms has been developed by the network of NGOs funded by external donors. This bothers politicians in power, who have often frontally attacked NGOs funded by foreign donors, accusing them of being sponsored by oligarchs or foreign agents, following the Russian model. In some cases, the government even tried to form a comfortable parallel “civil society” in order to annihilate criticism from active NGOs, which vehemently opposed the ruling party’s democratic backsliding.
Do civil society and media independence influence the fight against corruption in your country?
Undoubtedly, the independent media and an active civil society have an important role to play in preventing corruption in the Republic of Moldova. The independent press and civil society are constantly monitoring the way in which state institutions take anti-corruption actions, ensure the transparency of the activity of public authorities liable to corruption and, if corruption has been detected, put pressure on the government to comply with the law. Both the independent media and active civil society are two of the basic tools involved in the process of combating corruption.
At the same time, the independent media and active civil society have the means to raise public awareness of the risks of corruption and can mobilize public opinion to oppose corruption by political, economic or judicial actors. In the period until 2009, when the authoritarian tendencies of the then head of state, Vladimir Voronin, were manifested, and in 2016-2019, when the Republic of Moldova was informally led by the leader of the Democratic Party of Moldova, Vladimir Plahotniuc, the independent press and civil society where the most active actors who opposed to the increasingly obvious slide of the Republic of Moldova on the path of authoritarianism.
Even if they do not have the legal tools to fight corruption, the independent media and active civil society, by raising public awareness, have been able to stop acts of corruption committed by political actors. Often, the independent press and active civil society were the only actors in the society who opposed the government’s acts of corruption. This happens under the conditions in which the state institutions were passively witnessing the injustices committed by the power, and even the pro-European parties from the Republic of Moldova discredited themselves through acts of corruption. It was thanks to activity of the civil society and of the independent media, that the entire society found out that the financial system was looted (the so-called “billion theft”). After learning about the “theft of the billion” in Moldovan politics, a broad process began, which will be a long one, to reset the Moldovan political class, after which a “healthy” alternative to the leadership of the Republic of Moldova could emerge, able to contribute to democratization of the Moldovan society and the construction of a state with functional institutions.
Any state that has reached democracy, has a strong civil society, as well as an independent mass media, that are necessary elements that ensure the realization of reforms and the development of society. In the Republic of Moldova, active civil society and the independent press bring many benefits to society as a whole. They are important partners for authorities at all levels, which should be open and inclusive to the active part of the society, and act in the interests of the people so that they are informed and their rights respected.
An independent media and an active civil society, together with the European Union, that conditionally supports the government, can be the decisive factors capable of putting pressure on the political power to carry out effective reforms to eradicate corruption, thus contributing to the functioning of the rule of law and to the development of Moldovan society.
