The Moldovan opposition failed to disrupt the Russian loan
The Parliament of Moldova ratified today an agreement with Russia to issue a loan of 200 million euros for 10 years at 2% per annum.
56 out of 101 deputies voted for ratification, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports. At the same time, the opposition chanted “Shame!”
All week there was a hysterical campaign of agitation against the loan in the opposition media. Moreover, the main argument was that Russia provides it.
Last night, the leader of the pro-European forces, Maia Sandu, made a desperate attempt to influence the situation. She posted on her Facebook an invitation to Democratic Party lawmakers to meet before the decisive vote.
The Moldovan Democrats are the political force of oligarch Vlad Plahotniuc, who fled last year after the change of power. At one time, Sandu disgustedly refused to conduct any negotiations in them. Now, after several upheavals, the democrats have created a coalition with the socialists of President Igor Dodon, and Sandu decided to take a risk to break this alliance. But it didn’t work out: the democrats did not show up for the negotiations.
In alliance with Sandu were only former members of the Plahotniuc faction, who last month, for Russophobic reasons, left it and created the Pro Moldova group. Today they tried to ensure that the loan agreement was examined by the constitutional court, but it didn’t work out.
Deputies from the Sandu faction could only hysteria and intimidate.
“This is a dangerous agreement for us, for future generations, it contains provisions that are not in any agreement that Russia has signed with other countries,” said deputy Igor Grossu.
Another deputy, Dumitru Alaiba, called the Russian loan “the biggest crime after the theft of a billion.”
In response, Prime Minister Ion Chicu said that without the Russian loan, the first tranche of which Moldova will receive in May, the first tranche of 100 million euros, the government will not be able to pay pensions and salaries.
At the same time, the Moldovan parliament voted for receiving a loan from the IMF without any problems, casting 85 votes.
“All comments by the opposition regarding the loan offered by Russia represent a targeted attack on the government. This is the first real money that is issued as support to the state budget during the current economic crisis caused by the pandemic. The opposition, which criticizes the 2% rate of Russian loans, previously, when in power, received loans with much higher interest rates,” Chisinau municipal councilor Nicolae Pascaru commented on today’s events for Notebook Moldova.
The opposition's demarches have nothing to do with the real conditions of the Russian loan, but with the interests of Western external curators, says political observer Sergei Cheban.
“Brussels and Washington could not help but notice the financial and humanitarian intervention of Moscow and Beijing in the Moldovan direction. Therefore, in the near future we can expect the emergence of new solutions designed to balance, so to speak, the “eastern blow” to regions where the US and EU have their own strategic interests. Western players actually have something to fear...
Consistent linkage to credit capital from the east, to Eurasian markets and projects will create inevitable circumstances for Chisinau’s foreign policy reversal and the gradual abandonment of the implementation of the Association Agreement with the EU, which is currently the basic basis for the country’s development,” Ceban wrote in a commentary for RTA .
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