To refresh, Moldova joined Romania following the end of WWI, but fell under Soviet control during the rise of the USSR and declared independence in 1991 and became a separate nation of its own. Given Moldova’s history with Romania, it makes sense that there is some debate in the country about how Romanian the Moldovans are. In the Moldovan Declaration of Independence, the national language of Moldova is Romanian, and the countries share a national anthem. In 1994, the Moldovan Constitution declared Moldovan the official language of the country and established a new national anthem. The country has struggled to shake off the association with Romania, and, recently, some sections of the country have called for a reunification with Romania. But a majority of the country believes in a new identity for Moldovans without Romanian ties.
The discrepancy between the two documents led to a ruling in 2013 in which the government officially recognized Romanian as the official language of Moldova, but many people still like to claim Moldovan as their language though there is little if any discernible difference between the languages spoken in the two countries. 76% of Moldovans speak Moldovan/Romanian, but there are several minority languages: Gagauz, Ukranian and Russian. (WorldAtlas)
The Gagauzian people were against the pro-Romanian ties during Moldova’s independence fight and in the end were granted autonomy as a separate republic in the country, but the group comprises a small portion of the population but also reserves the right to pull our of the Moldovan state should it rejoin Romania. (Wikipedia)
Moldova has been a member of the United Nations since 1992 and has been a member of the World Trade Organization since 2001, but its most prominent relationship has been with the International Monetary Fund. Following the nation’s financial collapse in 2014, the IMF stepped and starting in 2016 had a plan for $178 million to be spent of reconstructing the nation’s economy. Reports from 2017 and 2018 have demonstrated growth and the prediction for 2019 is nearly a 4% growth. (SeeNews)
The GINI coefficient or index is a measurement of wealth inequality in a country. Moldova’s has steadily been going down over and was at 26 dropping 10 points from 2006 when it was at 36. This means that the wealth disparity is shrinking. Another big positive is Moldova’s growth in GDP in comparison with the U.S.’ dollar which has steadily gone up around $1 billion each of the last few years and is around $20 billion. It shocked me to see that the U.S. GDP is around $20 trillion. (TradingEconomics and IndexMundi)
The biggest news this past week in Moldova centers around the 2014 financial crisis which still haunts the country. The crisis was brought upon by the “heist of the century” in which nearly $15 billion went missing from the national banks. The struggle to end the corruption and get back some of the money lost is still in the front of Moldovan’s minds. In the latter half of last week, one of the opposition party members (not pro-Russian) (the heist was allegedly masterminded by a pro-Russian official) called upon Romania to help seek out a restore some of the lost funds because the current regime (pro-Russian) has not done anything to restore the funds, and some of it was thought to be in Romania. (BalkanInsight)
All the way across Europe, the former pro-Russian Prime Minister of Moldova’s son was told to pay over $500,000 in the United Kingdom because the money he has used there since 2016 is believed to have come from the heist, and the U.K. does not want to become a haven for dirty money. (Guardian)
(Photo of a $200,000 car purchased by PM’s son with dirty money from The Guardian)
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